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Interviewed about “The Bridge,” Sofia Helin admitted that the success of the Nordic Noir in Britain had shocked her. “I would never have dreamt this. I’m so happy it’s uniting us,” she said. The show, first screened in Britain in 2012, was such a hit that it became BBC Four’s most watched drama, prompting a move to BBC 2. The fourth and final season aired earlier this year.

Never openly acknowledged by writer Hans Rosenfeldt, many viewers would form the opinion that Helin’s character Saga Norén, the homicide detective, had Asperger’s syndrome, a form of autism. As Helin so aptly puts it: “I’m 46 now, and people are following a woman who is over 40 and has a disability and wears practically no make-up. It’s a sign that the world is mature enough to embrace new types of women in films and television. I think why people love Saga is that she so obviously has problems and disabilities, she is so lonely and she is struggling to get love. That is something almost everybody can relate to.”