VIKINGS SEASON 5A Michael Hirst, Vikings Creator & Writer Generic
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VIKINGS SEASON 5A Michael Hirst, Vikings Creator & Writer Generic Interview Q. WHAT IS THE COMMON THEME IN SEASON 5 OF VIKINGS? A. Looking at Season 5 of Vikings, there is a common theme - how political allegiances are constantly shifting, treaties and allegiances are being made and broken, and everyone is following their own agendas. In terms of storyline, there’s a lot of story. A lot of stuff happens in this season, which is pretty accurate in terms of how Viking society actually operated. Initially, there were no separate countries. There was no Norway, Sweden, it was all just small independent kingdoms, constantly fighting. Q. HOW MUCH OF WHAT YOU WRITE IS ORGANIC AND HOW MUCH IS DRY FACT? YOU HAVE SAGAS/HISTORICAL FACT TO BASE IT ON BUT OBVIOUSLY GAPS TO FILL. DO YOU FIND THAT PART DIFFICULT OR ENJOYABLE? A. That’s the enjoyable part for me. When writing The Tudors I realised that’s what I really enjoyed, interweaving different storylines and developing the characters and storyline as opposed to just revealing them. That’s the fun part for me. Inexhaustible fun. Q. HOW DID YOU BRIDGE SEASON 4 AND 5? A. Up to end of 4th season, we’ve been locked into world of Ragnar’s family so there’s been limited storylines, one or two basic storylines that people get into. In terms of big adventures, until now, we have only been to France, but with Season 5 we start expanding our worlds. Season 5 starts with the beginning of the disintegration of Ragnar’s family and the great army. The characters become much more ambitious and venture out to the Mediterranean and Iceland. Brothers split up and form different allegiances and begin absorbing more of world around them. In Season 5, the series continues to expand and build, showcasing more of the sons. I always said from beginning that show was not just about Ragnar, but about Ragnar and his sons. In fact, in many ways his sons became more famous than Ragnar. Bjorn did actually go to Mediterranean and Tunisia and Ivar the Boneless was a very famous Viking. I seem to have waited a lifetime to get Ivar the Boneless into the script – who knew the most NB Viking leader was a cripple considering what the assumptions are about Vikings. Ivar was one of the cruelest and most successful Vikings and we are very lucky to have Alex Hogh Andersen playing Ivar, he is a brilliant actor. Q. HOW LONG TO DO YOU THINK THE SHOW COULD GO ON? A. I just finished writing the first half of Season 6, so that’s 80 episodes so far. I have another 10 to do, at least. The issue of how long the show could go on is still an open book. The fact is that we will be airing episodes far as 2019 with what we have now. Who knows really, it’s a gift that keeps on giving. Q. BISHOP HEAHMUND – HOW MUCH RESEARCH DID YOU PUT INTO HIM AND DID YOU HAVE JONATHON RHYS MEYERS IN MIND TO PLAY HIM? A. It started out, like most things in screenwriting and life; it’s about problem solving. Writing is about that – how do we manage that or resolve issues between brothers. The issue was how do I find a Saxon warrior who is equivalent to Vikings in terms of charisma and reputation. At beginning of S5, the king is in waiting, Aethelwulf in exile, Alfred is ill and possibly dying. The wheels are coming off the Saxon empire in Wessex, so I spoke to my historical advisor and said we need to find someone who can represent the Saxons and he suggested a warrior bishop. These were men who were the precursors to the Knights Templar, genuinely religious men who often were bishops, but also fighters. When we found Bishop Heahmund, a historical figure who was a warrior bishop, I had found a Saxon warrior that could theoretically stand up to Ivar and Bjorn and other Vikings. Someone suggested Johnathan Rhys Meyers, which was brilliant because, like Bishop Heahmund, he is passionate and intense and I someone in this role that had that intensity. I wanted to show pagan fundamentalism – for audience to understand that paganism was a real religion and that people believed it very deeply. It meant a lot and explained the world to the Vikings. I think I was getting that message across. We’ve seen levels of belief – Floki is a complete fundamentalist and I wanted to show same for Christianity, that it was driven by people like Bishop Heahmund – young religion sweeping across globe and one of reasons was intensity of belief and Heahmund was going to represent that for me – passionate Christians coming up against equally passionate pagans. That was story behind that. Once you have characters and the story you want to tell it’s fun putting them together, and to figure out what circumstances they are going to need. We put the pagans and the Christians together early in the season in York and those are incredible scenes. We do battles very well, better than other shows but the way Ivar and Heahmund fight and exist is incredible. Q. WHAT ATTRACTED YOU MOST TO THE IDEA OF EXPANDING THE SHOW INTO OTHER PLACES LIKE ICELAND? A. I always knew I would take the series to different worlds. I always know I would take the show to France, for instance, because of the famous battle where the Vikings attacked Paris. If you’re working on something set in Dark Ages, inevitably means not as much material about that for that era than say the Tudors. But if there’s anything real then I want to use it. I want to keep pushing boundaries of story and Viking experience into the world as they did. That’s why the show is so meaningful to people around the world because Viking influence reached so many places. Considering how small these countries are, the impact on world is staggering. Q. WHAT IS THE BIGGEST CHALLENGE OF YOUR JOB? A. The biggest challenge is to take what I know historically and get our production to reflect it on the screen. They need to show size because we don’t want to do that with visual effects, everything starts with real things. Our actors fight, row, ride horses and we add visual effects, but how do we show that the Vikings reach is now extensive? You have to go to different places, like Iceland and persuade audience that the places are real. Q. DID YOU FIND ANY SCENE PARTICULARLY DIFFICULT TO WRITE? A. Quite a few of the episodes have been difficult to write. Vikings is about life and death and all the area in between, so we have had a lot of significant deaths and extraordinarily emotional moments. I’m the only writer on the show and I live with these characters for years and get very attached to them. If and when I have to kill off, it is a huge moment for me. For instance, Travis [Fimmel] and I spent a long time together talking through the death of Ragnar Lothbrok. We talked about what he would say and how that would happen. We talked and fought about it - it was a passionate engagement. The most emotional moment for me however was in Season 1 when Ragnar is on a beach lamenting the death of his daughter Gyda. I have daughters and I imagined giving that speech myself. Travis has no children but nevertheless was wonderful, lyrical and full of feeling and emotion when delivering that speech. I’m emotionally engaged with the characters I write. Q. WHAT WAS IT LIKE FILMING LAST SCENE WITH TRAVIS? A. My memory is of Travis [Fimmel] suspended in a cage in the mountains in Ireland, in pouring rain, howling wind, in winter, with everyone freezing cold and Travis hitting the sides of cage shouting “I HATe MICHAeL HIRST!!!” It was an emotional moment. Q. CAN YOU TELL US MORE ABOUT THE CLASH OF CULTURES AND CIVILIZATIONS? A: Personally, it’s what drives me and interests me, which is why I’ve never tired of writing this series. I have Icelandic novelist and historian who help me with sagas, but I like delving into books and reading. History and English are the only two subjects I was really good at in school, so I cleverly combined them. I like reading footnotes to books; I find those interesting bits of information, the personality and details about people. I’m always looking for things that contradict assumptions and prejudices. The whole idea we had about Vikings was a cliché. We didn’t know much about them because the attitude towards them was established by and large by their enemies in the Western world. To make matters worse, the Vikings didn’t write anything down themselves, so we don’t have personal accounts of their culture. We just think of them as grubby dirty hippies only interested in pillage. In making Vikings, I wanted to show, through Ragnar, that the Vikings were driven by curiosity and they had the necessary technology with boats and sunstone to facilitate that curiosity, to go places. And it goes beyond adventure and curiosity, their attitude toward women was much more enlightened than societies around them – England, France, Spain – they were more democratic than most other societies. Without being educational, I don’t want to teach people, but can put out there, in drama, the things that challenge our assumptions and prejudices.