"His [Victor Sjöström's] heart wasn't very strong during the production. He was often tired and had difficulty remembering his lines. That made him angry and irritable with himself. A reaction that I believe stemmed from wounded pride and the insistence on an actor's discipline that he had retained from his time as a director. Ingmar worked with Sjöström out of love, admiration and an endless tact and understanding. He and I together arrived at a tacit agreement: it was I who would be blamed when we had to retake a scene because Victor forgot his lines. I don't know if we really succeeded in deceiving him, but this strategy certainly worked, particularly where Ingmar's and Victor's relations were concerned, but also where I was involved. This tacit understanding formed a bond between two generations of players, a mutual respect, tolerance, and friendship that I hope in some way relieved the loneliness that enveloped Victor—which was entirely in line with the film."


"Many of my films are about journeys, about people going from one place to another. What is stone dead in Wild Strawberries—as far as I now remember it—is the three youngsters. Not the one played by Bibi in the flashbacks: she's rather a sweet girl. But these three who are supposed to represent modern kids. Even at that time the image was utterly outdated."


"I don't like myself in that film. I think I was doing very clichéd work, I don't know why I made her so superficial. You see at the time we had many 'ingénue' roles, and it was like I was acting young. When I did The Seventh Seal I was more innocent as an actor, I just sat there and made the thoughts. I think today that I have come back more to that attitude."


"Sjöström was wonderful to work with because he was very real. He was a very modern actor. I never heard of any real difficulties between him and Bergman, but there was a little struggle, because Ingmar, I think, had his own father a little bit in mind. He wished that this father would suddenly look inside himself and be able to expose old age when it is bitter and lonely, yet end in a sort of, not forgiveness, but some understanding and reunion with himself. And I felt that he sometimes worried that Victor wanted to play for sympathy more than understanding. He didn't want him to be sentimental—and I don't think he is in the film."


"In Wild Strawberries the old professor is going through Sweden in a car and Victor Sjöström was very old and ill and very weak. So we couldn't take him out and shoot it in a car. So we had to make every shot with back projection in the studio. And our back projection was not very good and we had no time to make tests. We had to shoot everything so that it would be all right from the very beginning, and they were not very good. I hate to see them now."


"Isak Borg equals me. IB equals Ice and Borg (the Swedish word for fortress). Simple and facile. I had created a figure who, on the outside, looked like my father but was me, through and through. I was then thirty-seven, cut off from all human relations. It was I who had done the cutting off, presumably an act of self-affirmation. I was a loner, a failure, I mean a complete failure. Though successful. And clever. And orderly. And disciplined. I was looking for my father and my mother, but I could not find them. In the final scene of Wild Strawberries there is a strong element of nostalgia and desire: Sara takes Isak Borg by the hand and leads him to a sunlit clearing in the forest. On the other side he can see his parents. They wave to him. One thread goes through the story in multiple variations: shortcomings, poverty, emptiness, and the absence of grace. I didn't know then, and even today I don't know fully, how through Wild Strawberries I was pleading with my parents: see me, understand me, and—if possible—forgive me."


"Victor Sjöström was an excellent storyteller, funny and engaging—especially if some young, beautiful woman happened to be present. We were sitting at the very source of film history, both Swedish and American. What a pity that tape recorders were not available at this time. All these external facts are easy to recall. What I had not grasped until now was that Victor Sjöström took my text, made it his own, invested it with his own experiences: his pain, his misanthropy, his brutality, sorrow, fear, loneliness, coldness, warmth, harshness, and ennui. Borrowing my father's form, he occupied my soul and made it all his own—there wasn't even a crumb left over for me! He did this with the sovereign power and passion of a gargantuan personality. I had nothing to add, not even a sensible or irrational comment. Wild Strawberries was no longer my film; it was Victor Sjöström's! It is probably worth noting that I never for a moment thought of Sjöström when I was writing the screenplay. The suggestion came from the film's producer, Carls Anders Dymling. And as I recall, I thought long and hard before I agreed to let him have the part."


"I'm not sure if it's so much about me. Of course, I'm in it somewhere, but the basic character in Isak Borg is very much my dad. Or Father, as I used to call him. You did in those days. Of course...there are issues in it...that are very personal. I actually wrote it with Victor Sjöström in mind. He was my icon, someone I admired more than anyone else. This film The Phantom Chariot that he made—I think it's the most remarkable film I've ever experienced. I didn't dare call him myself, so the manager of Svensk Filmindustri had to do it. And he said he'd have a look at the script. And then he sent for me, and I went to see him in his apartment. A big, dark apartment with a housekeeper...who could have been written for a Bergman movie. So he explained—he was 78 years old at the time—that he found it interesting and would love to talk to me about it, but I was never to think that he could play the part. He was too tired and didn't have the strength for it. But how we—I didn't give up. No matter how we approached this question, he said he would think about it. He wouldn't reject it out of hand. If Victor didn't—And I agreed with the production supervisors that if Victor didn't agree to do it, there would be no one else. I had written the story with Victor in mind. Then he called me early the next morning and said, 'Yes, I've decided to do it on one condition.' 'What is that?' 'It's got nothing to do with finances, because you don't deal with that. But I want my shot of whiskey every afternoon at 5:00. So you must make sure we finish in time for me to get home and have my drink at 5:00.' This I promised him. But it's no longer my film. It is, and forever will be, Victor's film. And as such, I think it's great."