It’s true that it’s much hotter in Portugal than in Sweden, but on the day that Roxette were there to shoot the music video for “Anyone”, the thermometers barely rose. At 7:00, when filming began in Lisbon, the two singers, who had come in from the cold, actually had to take shelter in the car.

Hello Marie, hello Per, good morning. What are you doing here?

Marie Fredriksson: Well, we’re shooting a video for our new single “Anyone”.

But what are you doing inside the car?

Per Gessle: Yeah, well we’re waiting for the sun right now, so we’re sitting here because it’s so cold.

Per, what are your expectations for this video clip?

Per: Well, we expect it to be fantastic, as always. Working with Jonas Åkerlund, directing it, it’s always great fun, you know, we’ve done like eight or nine videos with him now. And, you know, we expect some nice weather later on during the day, and I expect also that, you know, Marie will be fantastic as always.

The Swedish Jonas Åkerlund is the director of this video clip, and he’s also responsible for translating the music into images, a job that requires a lot of imagination.

Jonas Åkerlund: It’s always different, I get the music, I have like only a couple of days to come up with an idea, but with Roxette, I worked with Per and Marie for many years, so it’s kind of a dialogue between us, the three of us, to come up with a good idea of what to do with that song. We’ve done so many different kind of videos together, but it’s always a dialogue, you know, we kind of do it together. The most important thing is, of course, to make the artist look good, and of course to make a video that is not boring after one minute, you know.

“Anyone” is a ballad about sadness and loneliness. The strong image of this video clip is, therefore, that of a distressed woman looking for a solution to her problems. Despite the cold and being still very early, Marie faced the first scene with complete serenity. Barefoot and wearing a summer dress, she followed the director’s orders to the letter, walking in the middle of the traffic.

Marie: I think that it’s going to use some special effects, you know, with so much more cars than we have here. So in the picture, in the end, you’re going to see me in a lot of traffic, I think, running around in the middle. It’s crazy, kind of dangerous.

Do you feel more comfortable acting or singing?

Marie: I like both. I love to shoot videos and act. When I was small, I was, you know, really thinking about being an actress or a singer, but music was, you know, closer to the heart.

Per finds it less fun to shoot video clips anyway, in this one he only appears in two scenes.

Per: I was just, you know, passing Marie on the way down into the tunnel. It’s very simple. The waiting is always the hardest part when you’re shooting videos. The shot is actually very easy to do.

After Lisbon, Troia was chosen as the setting for the end of this video clip.

Jonas: It has everything you want in one place, the interior and the exterior and the beach, and the sun just disappeared, but it’s supposed to be sun here, so that’s why we picked it.

Marie: This place here, I have never ever seen anything like it. It’s so special. I think it’s so sad, though, because it’s so… It’s no longer in… They’re not using it anymore. And that’s really sad, because it’s very beautiful around here.

Oh, it’s a very lonely, sad song, but it’s… It’s absolutely one of my favorites on the album. It’s a great melody and it’s… You know, I think that a lot of people can identify with the song and with the lyrics, because it’s… You know, sometimes I think all of us have felt like that, you know.

The atmosphere of this video clip is sad, but outside the scene, Marie doesn’t lose her good mood. The hardest part was reserved for last. The music video for “Anyone” ends with a suicide attempt that forces Marie into the sea. With the music of the Roxette, these images of Troia will go around the world.