Andersson made her English-language debut as a woman raped by an Apache and subsequently gives birth to a half-breed in "Duel at Diablo" (1965). Her big bid for stardom outside Sweden came with John Huston's underrated "The Kremlin Letter" (1970), as the doomed wife of a suspected spy (Max Von Sydow). She made a successful shift to character roles with "I Never Promised You a Rose Garden" (1977), a disturbing study of schizophrenia with Andersson as a compassionate psychologist. To date, her widest exposure may have come with the Oscar-winning Danish film "Babette's Feast" (1987), in which she portrayed a Swedish lady-in-waiting.
Andersson has worked extensively on stage in Sweden, notably in "Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf" and "A Streetcar Named Desire". On the Broadway stage, she appeared as Anna in "Full Circle" (1973). She was based in the US during the mid-70s while having tax problems in Sweden. Andersson appeared in the NBC rendition of Arthur Miller's "After the Fall" (1974), but she is better known for her roles in Bergman's Swedish TV production "Scenes From a Marriage" (1973; later re-edited and released theatrically) and as Major von Dardel in "Wallenberg: A Hero's Story" (NBC, 1985).