Storytelling is part of Alma Pöysti’s DNA. In Four Little Adults, the Finnish actor portrays a cheated career woman who decides to choose polyamory to save her marriage. Pöysti describes the tale as a giant love story.

Can ethical non-monogamy work after being monogamous for almost 20 years? This is a decision successful parliamentarian Juulia makes to save her marriage in the drama Four Little Adults. Juulia is portrayed by Finnish actor Alma Pöysti who won the Dragon Award for Best Acting at Gothenburg Film Festival.

“It felt absolutely amazing and I’m deeply humbled by it. An award for acting is never something you get alone. It’s really a team effort, you share with the whole crew, director and your co-actors,” delightful Pöysti tells via Zoom from Helsinki, where she lives.

Four Little Adults is written and directed by Oscar nominee Selma Vilhunen.

“I was approached by Selma. She presented the idea. I got to read the script. I thought it was great and it felt like something I haven’t read or seen before. She’s a very original screenwriter and a director. And she has the biggest heart and curiosity towards humans and human life.”

Pöysti continues describing Vilhunen with words like “quite extraordinary”, “one of a kind”, and “very brave.”

“She really goes her own way. She creates a very loving and good atmosphere around her. There is joy and trust around her in the room and the whole crew. She has an amazing gaze on the human and the actors. I felt very free and seen. It was actually a terrific experience to work with her. She’s been doing movies for a while and she really knows what she’s doing. She doesn’t always know what the answer is but she knows what questions she’s interested in. That I find extremely valuable.”

When Juulia finds out her husband, priest Matias (Eero Milonoff), has had a year-long affair with Enni (Oona Airola), she collapses. To salvage the marital relationship, Juulia invites Enni to be a part of their lives. They start a polyamorous relationship. 

“Juulia and Matias have quite a comfortable life together. Then, it turns out that he’s been having an affair. She comes up with quite an unusual way of dealing with the whole thing and maybe questioning how they live their lives, how they’ve been, the whole question of monogamy,” Pöysti explains.

While Juulia explores the new rules, she falls in love with young Miska (Pietu Wikström) who seems to be the most mature of the quartet. There is a lot of love in the relationships among the four people involved but, no matter how hard they try, challenges remain.

“Juulia is extremely generous. But it’s also very painful for her to grow. While questioning everything, she gets thinking: ‘maybe I should have a relationship as well’. That’s when things start to happen. Not to spoil too much of the movie but it’s really a modern sort of love story.”

The film is also tackling another theme: society’s high-power structure.

“One is a priest and one is a member of parliament. They should be the ones who are somehow leading the way or being role models in society. One of the big questions is: can they be allowed to be this liberal? And: Why shouldn’t they, actually? I mean, who and what are they threatening? There is, of course, the possibility of pain, hurting each other. But secrecy can also do that.”

Pöysti approached her character as honest, vulnerable, and open as possible.

“There are multiple layers all the time because Juulia wants to be this bigger person who understands, forgives, and can move on. At the same time, she has all these feelings of jealousy, of being this person she doesn’t want to be. Not being wise or full grown enough.” 

Juulia’s ambition is familiar to Pöysti. 

“She’s a member of this fictional party, the equality party. I could absolutely imagine myself voting for a party like this. I think I admire this Julia a lot. I think we could be more humane towards each other, more generous, loving, and peace-promoting.”

Pöysti herself comes from an artistic family. Her grandparents and uncle were actors. Her father was a theatre director.

“Theater has been a huge part of my life growing up. I was spellbound by this magical world and it really drew me in since I was a small child. They took me to see plays. And my mom and dad were always reading books to me. I grew up with stories and storytelling in many ways. I guess storytelling is part of my DNA.”

At one point in her teens, she went through a phase when she didn’t want to be an actor.

“Then, as I was growing older, I realized that at some point I have to decide what I want to do with my life. After high school, I took a year off in Paris and gave myself time to think about it. I really had to be honest with myself. I concluded: I’m going to be an actor.”

Because of her background, she felt she just can’t fool around with acting. She needed to be serious.

“I respected it too much. My decision came from my heart. I knew I needed to work my ass off to be an as good actor as I can ever be. You can’t really say that you want to be the best actor. But you can be the best you can be. That takes a lot of work. Acting is all about experience. It’s a job you have to do on your own. It doesn’t help that you have very experienced actors in your family. That doesn’t make you experienced in any way.”

She heard important advice from her relatives.

“They spoke sometimes of the clarity of thought when you are acting. If you don’t have clarity of thought it will just be blurry and no one else will be able to follow. If you’re in your bubble having an emotional mess, maybe that is really important for you, but it’s worthless if you don’t let people in on the journey.”

When she returned to Finland she applied to study acting and got in on her second try. She has a master’s degree from the University of Helsinki.

“It was a very physical and quite international education. We were taught to take responsibility for our own artistry. Not just obeying orders from someone else’s visions. You can have an intellectual process as well. That’s something I’m very grateful for.”

Once graduated, she was hired by the Swedish theater in Helsinki. After four years of steady work, she became a freelancer. Among other works, she did Chekhov’s “Uncle Vanya” and “The Cherry Orchard” with a Ukrainian theater director Andry Zholdak. She worked with the Gothenburg City Theatre, the Stockholm City Theatre, and the Uppsala City Theatre.

In 2019, just before the Covid-19 pandemic, she was cast for the role of Swedish-speaking Finnish author and illustrator Tove Jansson in director Zaida Bergroth’s biographical film Tove. Pöysti won a Jussi Award, the premier film industry award in Finland, for her performance.

“That was really a love project. I grew up with Tove’s stories and she’s been really like a role model my whole life.” She mentioned she had to get over “the respect, the love, and really dare to go as close as possible to the character.”

Lately, she’s been extremely busy filming television shows and movies. The upcoming Netflix film A Day and a Half, directed by Fares Fares, will air later this year. Also in the pipeline: two movies with two legendary Finnish directors. The first one is Aki Kaurismäki’s Dead Leaves. The second one is Orenda, currently filming with Pirjo Honkasalo.

How does she unwind when she has a free moment? “I’m crazy about nature. I’m always digging in the ground and planting flowers or trees. And I’m quite a recent beekeeper. I have two beehives out on an island in the archipelago of Finland. During the pandemic, I had some time off. So, I took an evening course in beekeeping and got two beehives. The world of bees is absolutely fascinating. A small way to do good for the planet.”