Systad Jacobsen sees Alma as a very complicated character, on one hand annoying and obnoxious, and on the other sweet and normal. “You can completely understand why her mother would feel frustrated,” she says, “but you can also understand Alma’s urge to be the person that she really is and this is something she doesn’t know how to deal with. One thing I like about her is that she’s completely her own person. She’ll stand up for who she is. Her methods aren’t always the most clever, but it’s a quality I like and one that I share with her.”

To cast Alma, Systad Jacobsen was looking for a girl who wouldn’t give the impression of being the most popular girl in school, but not enough on the margins to be bullied. “Often when people cast characters like this the actors have to have some attribute like orange hair, so you know they’re weird right away,” says Systad Jacobsen. “We wanted someone who was basically normal but had a slight strangeness about her.” She saw a potential in 17-year-old Helene Bergsholm. “She was very shy and fragile, so it wasn’t easy to get started with her. But we believed in her and kept asking her to come back to audition again and again. The more she got in front of the camera, the more confident she became.” Says Bergsholm: “I thought I was awful! I was really nervous and I didn’t know what I was doing. I’ve seen the audition tapes and I think they’re pretty bad. I don’t know why they chose me, but I just did my best and they liked it.”

While many of the characters in the film think Alma is eccentric, Bergsholm sees her as an ordinary teenager, one that many girls can relate to. “I actually think that Alma is the most normal person in Skoddeheimen,” she says. “She isn’t afraid of showing how it really is. She feels something and she shows it and everyone around her gets crazy and thinks she’s weird just because of the things she’s feeling. They make big problems out of something that’s not really a problem.”

Before she was offered the chance to play Alma, Bergsholm pondered whether she would take it. “I wasn’t sure if I was going to say yes or no because of all the embarrassing scenes which would be difficult and challenging,” she says. “I just didn’t know if I was going to be able to do it. In the end I had to say yes, though. I’ve always wanted to do something like this, but been too shy so I just had to jump in and do it.” After she was cast, her parents read the script and casting agent Michelsen and Systad Jacobsen met with her and her parents in a hotel to have them read over the script, so they could ask questions and understand what her intentions were with the film before giving their consent. “Even if she was eighteen, it would have been out of the question not to involve her parents,” says Systad Jacobsen. All the parents of the teen actors read the script and discussed it prior to shooting.