Since the age of sixteen Andersson has been connected with the theatre, as an actress and later as a director. She came to prominence in Ingmar Bergman's Sommarnattens leende / Smiles of a Summer Night (1955), the start of a long association with the director — embracing, among other films, Det sjunde inseglet / The Seventh Seal (1957), Beröringen / The Touch (1971), and Scener ur ett äktenskap / Scenes from a Marriage (1974) — an association which has dominated her image, if not her actual career. Her screen persona evolved from her double role in Smultronstället / Wild Strawberries (1957) as the vivacious, sexually "free" blonde hitchhiker who triggers off the memories of Professor Borg (Victor Sjöström) and as his childhood love, to the complex heroine of Persona (1966), in which the celebrated extreme close-ups of her face (along with those of Liv Ullmann) personified 1960s angst. She has appeared in films by other Swedish directors, such as Gustaf Molander's Herr Arnes penningar / Mr. Arne's Money (1954), Vilgot Sjöman's Syskonbädd 1782 / My Sister, My Love (1966) and Mai Zetterling's Flickorna / The Girls (1968), as well as in international productions such as Robert Altman's Quintet (1978, US) and Gabriel Axel's Babettes gæstebud / Babette's Feast (1987).