Do we like them?

Do we like Renate Reinsve?

Our score: 7 out of 10. A clean record and a quiet streak of good, but she rarely talks politics, so there's less on the page than for a louder star.

Renate Reinsve grew up in Solbergelva, a small Norwegian village, and left home at 16. Il Post reports she was a competitive swimmer until she quit, then moved to Edinburgh at 20 and worked behind a bar while soaking up the Fringe, which is what pushed her towards acting.

She trained at the Oslo National Academy of the Arts, graduated in 2013 and won a Hedda Prize for her stage work in 2014. Her first film role was two lines in Joachim Trier's Oslo, August 31st. Then came the twist: just before Trier called about The Worst Person in the World, she was set to quit and train as a carpenter.

That call changed everything. The Worst Person in the World won her the Best Actress prize at Cannes, and Trier reunited with her for Sentimental Value, which earned her a Golden Globe nomination and an Oscar nomination for Best Actress. W Magazine's cover story has her saying she gets scared by a part if it feels “too close to me or to a situation that I've been in.”

On the harm test, we searched her name against LGBTQ+ and women's issues, climate, vaccines, migration and politics, and found no statements or campaigns of any kind. Her recent film company is mainstream: Trier, Mungiu's Fjord with Sebastian Stan, and A24's Backrooms. Nothing in that lot raises a flag. That's an absence of evidence, not a manifesto, and we'll say so.

On the good-person test, no lawsuits, court cases or credible allegations turned up. Tabloid-style SEO sites speculate about her private life, but none of it is reporting, and we've left it alone. She does have a soft spot for hands-on work and told Russh she has a vision of a group for women to learn to fix things and build stuff together.

The real good stuff is recent. In March 2026 UNICEF Norway named her a national ambassador, promoting children's rights. We only saw the press release summary, so we can't say what she'll actually do with it. It's a fair start, and a mate would take it.