CHILDHOOD
Caroline doesn't want to talk about everything. Her expression becomes guarded when I ask about personal things; about childhood, family, life, love. So I ask if it is important for her to have boundaries.
- Important, yes. But also difficult. Because the differentiation between me and the image I have as an artist is so unclear. I reveal so much of myself on stage and that feels right. At the same time, it is a little scary too, to be so open. I've always been raised with the attitude that some things are private. The audience has the right to be entertained, but your personal life is your own, Caroline says.
She knows better than most people how it is for good and bad to live in the limelight. Her father, Per Asplin, was a super star in Norway before the word was invented; everybody's property via an intervention called television that was still brand new, jazz singer, actor, entertainer.
Caroline was born in 1966. She was the family's latecomer, a redheaded charmer with a sweet funny face. She loved to perform and, already as a three-year-old, got a leading role in the musical "Putti Plutti Pott". For almost twenty years, Caroline Asplin performed in "Putti Plutti Pott" and the two other musicals her father produced.
- What has the background as child artist meant to you?
- I have learned a lot. I have 27 years of experience as an artist. When school was done we would head off to rehearsals and work. I feel that it has given me endurance and willpower that not all artists possess. At the same time, it became quite a unique life. I felt that I was strong, but became pretty lonely and prematurely sophisticated. So, I would say that, it has been 50 percent positive and 50 percent negative.
TO USA
- Then you went to USA and became an artist of your own.
- I went to USA after high school. I had lots of contacts. Dad and I had often performed in USA, and we had many friends there, Caroline says.
She met Stefanie, the friend who later vanished without a trace and to whom the song "Missing" is dedicated, after a concert in San Francisco.
- I met her through a family I stayed with. We met only for a short time, but we immediately had an incredible connection. I met her again three years later. The connection was even better. It was as if we had known each other in a previous life. I knew what she was thinking before she spoke. When we told each other about what we had been dreaming in the night, it turned out to be the same dreams. Later, when I came back to Norway, I suddenly woke up one night. I had had a nightmare about Stefanie. In the dream she had been on a long journey to Thailand, India and the Nevada Desert. Suddenly in the middle of the desert she disappeared. In the same moment a sign appeared with the word MISSING in capital letters. My dreams are often accurate, so I became pretty worried. Ran out of bed and called her. And yes, she was planning a trip to Asia. But don't worry, she said, I'll take care of myself.