‘General Hospital’: Sofia Mattsson Likes to Rehearse Her Lines at This Unexpected Time of Day
Sofia Mattsson is best known for playing Sasha Gilmore on General Hospital. She joined the cast in 2018 and has since become a big part of the show. Sasha’s life has intertwined with those of long-time citizens in Port Charles.
Because of her increased prominence on General Hospital, Mattsson has no doubt been given more lines to memorize. Every actor has their own method for tackling this task, and Mattsson’s preference is to rehearse at an unexpected time of day.
Sofia Mattsson moved to the U.S. to pursue acting at age 19
Mattsson was born and raised in Sweden. One of her older sisters is Helena Mattsson, who has been acting in Hollywood since the early 2000s. Helena has appeared on shows like Desperate Housewives, Fargo, and American Horror Story.
Mattsson decided to move to the U.S. at the age of 19. She shared with Soap Opera Digest that her sister’s Hollywood career inspired her to begin her own as well.
“I would come visit her from Sweden and I just got amazed by the profession,” Mattsson said. “When she was shooting Desperate Housewives, I got to follow her to set and see what it was like, from her trailer to filming. It was just the most fun thing in the world. That inspired me.”
Sofia Mattsson had to adopt an American accent to make it in Hollywood
When Mattsson first started out, she mainly took on roles as foreign European women because of her distinct accent. In order to widen her career horizon, Mattsson decided to perfect her American accent with a lot of effort.
“When I decided to move here to pursue acting, I took very intense accent lessons specifically to be able to play American,” she revealed to Soap Opera Digest. “In the beginning, I had to play a lot of Swedish roles and Russian roles and European roles.”
In another interview with the outlet, she shared her trick for speaking like an American person: “Speaking English and not hanging out with Swedish friends. Just listening and practicing!”
Sofia Mattsson likes to rehearse lines at this unexpected time of day
These days, another challenge for Mattsson is memorizing lines. Because soap operas like General Hospital air every day, they have intense filming schedules that leave very little time for actors to rehearse.
Mattsson told Digital Spy of her experience memorizing lines for General Hospital, “It takes a lot of practice but it gets easier with time. In the beginning, I had to constantly say them out loud and record the other people’s lines on my phone to play back and practice with. Now, it goes a lot quicker.”
For Mattsson, there is a specific time of the day that she finds the most effective for learning her scenes.
“I also find it easier for the lines to sink in when I read them in bed before going to sleep,” she said. “Sometimes it makes me dream about them too.”
