Bradley Freegard & Jóhannes Jóhannesson Interview: Vikings: Valhalla
Bradley Freegard and Jóhannes Jóhannesson star in Vikings: Valhalla as King Canute and Olaf Haraldsson, respectively. Netflix's new series serves as a sequel to the History Channel's Vikings, picking up around 100 years after the end of that story. Canute and Haraldsson are two pivotal figures in Vikings history as the Viking Age came to a close.
Screen Rant talked with Freegard and Jóhannesson about their roles in the show, the modern relevance of the religious conflict at the show's center, and how they research their characters.
Screen Rant: Olaf is such an interesting figure in the show considering his stance on religion within the Vikings and what I found so interesting about the Pagan versus Christianity conflict is that there are still echoes of those kinds of ideological battles going on even today. Were you thinking about that while you made this show or were you kind of just trying to stay in the era?
Jóhannesson: It is really interesting. Like you said, it's still going on today. And religion, although rooted in something, you know, very noble and beautiful is very often used as a means to gain power and manipulation. And that's very much the fact in our show, as it is in reality, both then and today to a very certain extent. So yeah, I definitely did think about that a lot. And I think it's beautifully written into the series by Jeb Stuart and the writers. How they use that is really interesting and enjoyable to see.
It lends a sense of sort of impending doom, considering the internal conflicts of the Vikings. As you guys obviously know, the show is happening at the end of an era for these characters. And for you, Bradley, playing such a prominent figure for the Vikings during this period, are you letting that influence the performance at all?
Freegard: It's a bit of both because obviously, Jeb has mined the same resource material as I will have read in doing my research. The character is a historical character and Jeb has. -it will be the same information that he's looked at, that I will have looked at, and he will have taken elements from the history and woven them into the drama. So my job then is to come along and try and lift off the page elements that Jeb has put there, and then try to bring to life and create a [three-dimensional], hopefully, grounded character that the people can enjoy.
Speaking of research, do either of you do a lot of that for these roles? Do you sit down and read a big history book or do you try to stay unaware so that you're also kind of surprised and can play into the movement of the story?
Jóhannesson: Well, it's just too tempting not to look at it, because all the material is there. I mean, I definitely couldn't resist reading up on everything I could get my hands on.
Freegard: You do both, really. It's a strange answer. But yeah, you do your research, you read your history books, but at the end of the day, when you find yourself on set, and you have a dialogue or a scene to do with several other actors, then you have to serve that scene at that particular time. You have to be in that moment - there's no point trying to serve a bigger purpose because you have to be doing what needs to be done to serve that scene. So at that point, it becomes live, it becomes a real thing. You're interacting with other human beings in the room with you and that's the only thing that you have control over that time.
Set over a thousand years ago in the early 11th century, VIKINGS: VALHALLA chronicles the heroic adventures of some of the most famous Vikings who ever lived — the legendary explorer Leif Eriksson (Sam Corlett), his fiery and headstrong sister Freydis Eriksdotter (Frida Gustavsson), and the ambitious Nordic prince Harald Sigurdsson (Leo Suter). As tensions between the Vikings and the English royals reach a bloody breaking point and as the Vikings themselves clash over their conflicting Christian and pagan beliefs, these three Vikings begin an epic journey that will take them across oceans and through battlefields, from Kattegat to England and beyond, as they fight for survival and glory.
Vikings: Valhalla is streaming now exclusively on Netflix.