Screen legend Liv Ullmann talks 50 years of 'Scenes From a Marriage' and why she 'couldn't have survived' in today's film industry

Everybody's a fan of somebody — even a screen legend like Liv Ullmann. In the 1970s, the celebrated Scandinavian star of such seminal movies as Persona, Cries and Whispers and The Emigrants was appearing on Broadway in a production of Anna Christie when she had a close encounter with the most famous actress ever to play the role: Greta Garbo. The reclusive Swedish actress-turned-Hollywood legend had been out of the public eye since her retirement in the ’40s, but Ullmann recognized her immediately when she spotted a then-76-year-old Garbo on the streets of Manhattan by Central Park.

"She was such a big star, and taught me so much about myself as an actress," Ullmann, 84, tells Yahoo Entertainment during an interview about the new docuseries, Liv Ullman: A Road Less Travelled, streaming now on Viaplay. "I saw her and thought, 'Oh, I'm doing Anna Christie and she was in the film Anna Christie — she would die to hear about this!'" And so Ullman did what any fan would do, but really shouldn't... she started to chase her idol.

"Garbo started to run and I ran after her," Ullmann confesses, chuckling and shaking her head at the memory. "She must have been terrified." Eventually, Garbo raced into the park and Ullmann decided to give up the chase. Reflecting on that encounter decades later, the actress wishes she had shown more chill.

"I've never said this before, but I wonder why I didn't just follow her to see where she was going," Ullmann muses. "When I was young, I used to follow people on the streets and see what kind of life they had. Maybe I could have followed her and found out why she wanted to keep to herself. I could have slowly gotten to know her and we could have talked. But I ran after her, because I felt so important. I felt like she had to know about me."

That experience gave Ullmann special insight into the oddly transactional nature of the relationship between fans and the celebrities they admire. "We have to remember why we are a fan of someone, because so often it becomes about us," she says. "This other person has to hear everything about your family story. A fan can very often have a self-occupied persona."

It's worth noting that Ullmann has plenty of her own famous fans, including Oscar winners Cate Blanchett and Jessica Chastain, who are among the actors interviewed in A Road Less Travelled. The three-part series captures different facets of Ullmann's storied career, including her work in front of and behind the camera, her long personal and professional relationship with Swedish auteur Ingmar Bergman and her role as a humanitarian for refugee-related causes.

Reflecting on her journey now, Ullmann says that she was "lucky" to begin her career at a time when actresses weren't pressured to put their artistic dreams on hold for the tangible commercial rewards that come with appearing in a Marvel movie or a Star Wars streaming series. "I couldn't have survived today, because I like quietness," she admits. "It's so much more difficult for actresses now."

"But then I see Cate Blanchett in Tar and I think 'How can she act like that?'" Ullmann adds, pointing to the films that remind her what she loves about screen acting. "It's such a wonderful profession, and we mustn't give it up. Maybe it is more difficult now, but we it's important that we continue to do the work because that's how people know who they are and why they are."

As Ullmann acknowledges in the series, her history with Bergman is what tends to dominate discussion of her life. She and the filmmaker made ten movies together between 1966 and 2003, and also had a five year romance during which time she gave birth to their daughter, Linn Ullmann. Because Bergman — who died in 2007 — tended to be reclusive, Ullmann often became the conduit through which the director's admirers tried to reach him or, failing that, understand him.

Case in point: Woody Allen. The Annie Hall writer/director has never hid his admiration for Bergman, having made several films — from comedies like Love and Death to dramas like Interiors — that specifically channel his idol's works. While performing A Doll's House on Broadway in 1975, Ullmann remembers Allen regularly extending dinner invitations to her, and one night she finally accepted. "We had dinner, but he only asked about Bergman!" she remembers now. "I immediately understood that he only wanted to know about Ingmar."

Eager to continue the conversation about Bergman, Allen followed that dinner up with an invitation to an early screening of his latest film. "He wanted me to see it before the premiere, so we went to this screening room and he lied down on the floor," she says, laughing. "He said, 'Don't say anything during the movie, and afterwards when I drive you home, don't say what you thought of it.' I almost didn't dare breath while watching it, I was so nervous! Then his driver took me home and we said goodbye. That's the closest I ever came to being in a Woody Allen movie. He never asked me to be in one of his movies, but he got to know a lot about Ingmar through me."

Allen also got to meet his idol thanks to Ullmann, who reveals that she facilitated their one and only meeting. "Ingmar was coming to New York to see A Doll's House, and Woody said, 'Can I meet him?' Bergman was staying with his wife [Ingrid von Rosen] at the Pierre Hotel and after the matinee, Woody met me at the theater and we drove over to the hotel. We knocked on their door, the door opened and the two geniuses saw each other. And they were completely quiet!"

According to Ullmann, that silence continued at dinner as neither Allen nor Bergman seemed eager to discuss their work, lest they somehow disappoint each other. "Ingmar's wife and I didn't have a lot to say to each other, so we talked about cooking and other things," she says, laughing. "But the two of them only sat there — it was two masters trying not to give away that maybe they weren't such big masters."

Despite the silent treatment, both Allen and Bergman profusely thanked Ullmann for bringing them together — making possible the kind of fan encounter that she wasn't able to enjoy with Greta Garbo. "After driving me home, Woody said, 'Wow, that was great.' And Ingmar called me later to say, 'Thank you, Liv. I got to meet him.' That was their only meeting, and I swear that they did not talk. That's a completely true story."

This year marks the 50th anniversary of what's arguably Ullmann and Bergman's most impactful work, Scenes From a Marriage, a searing portrait of one couple's conscious uncoupling. Originally made as a six episode series for Swedish television, the story was condensed into a feature film version that became a sensation in American movie theaters — inspiring such future works as Richard Linklater's Before trilogy and an HBO remake starring Oscar Isaac and Chastain.

While it's tempting for viewers to watch Scenes From a Marriage through the prism of how things ended between Ullmann and Bergman, she's quick to say that there's no overlap between that relationship and the one she has on-screen with co-star, Erland Josephson. "Maybe it was in ways that I don't understand," she says. "But that series came very close to what can go wrong in a relationship and how two people that once loved each other can part so full of anger and humiliation."

"I'm very proud that it was about a woman who grew," Ullmann continues, referring to her on-screen alter ego, Marianne, who flourishes after her marriage to Johan (Josephson) ends. "She grew and the husband didn't. When he finally wants to come back together, it's much too late. I like that a man wrote a script where he allows the woman to grow while the man says, 'Please can you take me back?'"

Thirty years later, Marianne and Johan did come back together for 2003's Saraband, the Scenes From a Marriage sequel that proved to be Bergman's final film. And in that case, Ullmann says that her shared history with the filmmaker did blur the lines between life and art. "That movie has one of the best lines I've ever had," she notes. "Johan asks her, 'Why did you come back?' And she said, 'You called for me.'"

"Four years after that, Bergman was dying," Ullmann continues, her memories visibly transporting back to that time. "I heard about it and took a flight to see him. He was in bed and already on his way. He didn't ask me anything, but he knew I was there. So I told him — not as an actress, but as Liv — 'If you're wondering why I'm here, you called for me.' He died a couple of hours later, and I know that he knew it."

Liv Ullman: A Road Less Travelled is currently streaming on Viaplay