i immediately i knew that it should be a revenge story partially because that's just most
of these viking stories are revenge stories but but you know a good revenge movie works and i
felt that if i could find a really simple mythic clear tale that this audience
could relate to and understand then i could indulge in the material world and the inner
and religious and mythological world more than if the story was complex
the vikings did a lot of terrible stuff uh like there you know and i don't shy away from that uh
in the film but what got me fascinated was the rich mythology and
and poetry uh as i learned more even you know their their wood carvings and and
visual artistic expression was also very inspiring i try to present this mind this mindset this
this this the viking mind uh whatever that is uh without judgment you know this is this is their
beliefs it's not my beliefs it's not your beliefs this is their beliefs but even then in not trying
to romanticize their beliefs i think with with the revenge motif you you know yeah as an audience
member part of you just wants him to get revenge because that's the way these kinds of stories work
the thing that made me want to make a viking movie was the icelandic landscapes the awe of these
landscapes that feel before time and without time because they're just so epic and you felt like
when i felt like silly as it is like i didn't even know anything about them like the norse
gods have got to be here man like they've got to be here and uh so so when so so when you are
telling a mythic tale like this like you know you want to have these mythic landscapes to set it in
this isn't my third film but i've been doing it long enough that i don't tend to like get
intimidated by actors and certainly on set it was we had a great relationship but with the first
time i was going to meet her i was a little bit like i'm going to meet a whole human and and so we
sat down at this italian restaurant in nashville and we were kind of talking like how was your
flight and then after 90 seconds she was like just so you know i'm going to do the movie and uh and
and and then we talked a little bit and she said this script has teeth
i don't read scripts that have teeth um which was cool and but she she also gave me a lot
of notes about her character uh that were incredibly good uh to make the character much
more rich and nuanced it was lucky for me that the handsomest famousest biggest like uh
nordic actor wanted to do a viking movie you know i mean who there's really
there's nobody nobody else who could play this role except for alex uh with the the kind of
complete dedication and believability that alex brings it's just nobody else
i must say that um even i in the age of kovid have been able to watch things at home in a way that i
i've found more comfortable doing you know and and as a filmmaker like i ha like i've tried so
hard my professional life and and and before that just as a movie lover to always see stuff in the
theaters and and i know it's hard it's hard but this this is a movie you have to see in
theaters you know dune was something that i was not gonna see like on hbo max and you know this
is a big it's literally an epic it's literally an epic hope you enjoyed this behind the scenes look
at the northmen directed by robert eggers and if you haven't seen any of his films before
you should really check out the lighthouse features of the batman and green goblin so
go ahead and check that out go ahead and like and subscribe and i'll see you here next time later