At 66, Aki Kaurasmaki reigns as Finland’s most well-known, idiosyncratic and creative filmmaker.

Ever since he stepped on the world stage with his 1989 mockumentary “Leningrad Cowboys Go America,” his unique, often deadpan humor and offbeat storytelling has become its own category, like Coppola, Scorsese or Nolan in America.

“Fallen Leaves,” a critics’ favorite that opens today amid Oscar predictions, is a spellbinding look at a pair of middle age blue collar workers finding, amazingly, romance.

Ansa (Alma Pöysti, the character’s name means “trapped”) lives independently by supporting herself with menial jobs. She meets Holappa (Jussi Vatanen) whose alcoholism is often a barrier to steady employment. Can they click? Can they endure together?

“I never saw this coming. It was like a dream come true that I didn’t even think was possible to dream about, to work with him. Because he’s such a legend in Finland,” said Pöysti, 42, in a Zoom interview in English.  “Like, everybody knows his films there. I grew up watching them, but I’d never met him in person. So this was an amazing opportunity to get to know him.”

“Fallen Leaves” was unusual from the start. “He works in mysterious ways. There was this phone call, they invited me for lunch with him. Jussi Vatanen was also invited. There he was, with paint on his hands, and he wanted to get to know us.

“We talked a lot about the forest and politics and towards the end he presented the idea of a movie. And asked if we wanted to join! There wasn’t a script at that time, but I mean, the answer is pretty clear. Maybe a year after that there was a script and a couple of months later, we started to shoot.”

When he films Kurasmaki, like Clint Eastwood, has his own unique method.

“He told us not to rehearse and somehow learn the lines. But don’t rely too carefully. And don’t prepare. And don’t rehearse, not together or separately.

“For me, I’m a real nerd. I love preparing and I could stay in the preparation phase forever. So I needed to do something: I rewatched all his movies after that first phone call, just to somehow get into his mind and this universe.

“I also realized that to get to be a part of his cinematic universe, you have to have some connection to what’s been done previously.

“Of course, not copying what the other actors have done, but somehow have a connection there. So I was trying to feed the unconsciousness. But yes, no rehearsing. And then he said he prefers to do the shots in one take.

“Oh!” she said smiling, “is that a terrifying combination?”