Interview Stellan Skarsgard and Hans Petter Moland
In Order Of Disappearance
Friends reunited
Stellan Skarsgard and Hans Petter Moland, friends and collaborators for 20 years, tell Wendy Mitchell about driving snowploughs and surviving bitterly cold weather for their Competition action comedy
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n Berlin a few days before the world premiere of In Order Of Disappearance in Competition, actor Stellan Skarsgard and director Hans Petter Moland joke that they should just get married already — and they say their wives might even allow it. The pair, who have collaborated for more than 20 years, do indeed have the air of an old married couple, finishing each other’s sentences, paying tribute to each other’s talents and sharing personal jokes. In Order Of Disappearance is their fourth feature together — they first teamed on Zero Kelvin in 1995, a pitch-black psychological drama in which Skarsgard played a rough old sailor turned trapper in east Greenland. “It was the chance to work with one of the truly great actors in Europe,” Moland says. “It became a collaboration for me, more than I could have hoped for. He had this great generosity, not just to me but to his fellow actors. He was so instrumental in keeping the process alive, joining me in digging and exploring this ‘joint venture’.” Skarsgard says: “He was a young director but it was such a great experience. I have this trust in Hans Petter, I totally trust him as a friend but also as a director. He’s a great storyteller, he’s great at the details… And he’s also so good at working with actors, you’ll never see a bad performance in one of his films.” Since Zero Kelvin, they have worked together on 2000’s award-winning Aberdeen and A Somewhat Gentle Man, which won the Berliner Morgenpost Readers’ Award at the Berlinale in 2010. Some two decades since they met, Moland says: “Being friends that have known each other so long gives you a shorthand… He can work with 10 different directors between our projects, so I also benefit from this spillover from other great colleagues.”
Ploughing on In Order Of Disappearance is described as an action comedy; it is a revenge story as well (the screenplay is by Kim Fupz Aakeson). Skarsgard plays Nils, a snowplough driver and
n 14 Screen International at Berlin February 10, 2014
Beitostolen, which looks luminously white and bright on screen, presented some challenging weather conditions. Skarsgard jokes: “I’ve done four films with Hans Petter and I’ve been cold in every fucking one.” The temperatures could be -27°c in Beitostolen. “It felt like my face would fall off,” Skarsgard says of some scenes. “You couldn’t move your face, my acting got restrained, I’m finally not able to overact,” he says with a hearty laugh. Paradox produces and TrustNordisk handles international sales, already closing deals including for Germany (Neue Visionen), the UK (Metrodome), South Korea (Atnine), France (Chrysalis) and Benelux (Wild Bunch). Nordisk releases locally on February 21. The film was also supported by the Norwegian Film Institute, Swedish Film Institute, Danish Film Institute, Nordisk Film & TV Fond, Eurimages, Film3 and Film i Vast.
Scandinavia’s future
‘It felt like my face would fall off. You couldn’t move your face, my acting got restrained, I’m finally not able to overact’ Stellan Skarsgard, above right with Hans Petter Moland
introverted good citizen who snaps when his son dies of a heroin overdose. He wants to search for his son’s ‘murderers’ and is caught up in a mix of Swedish, Norwegian and Serbian gangsters. The cast also features Bruno Ganz, Pal Sverre Hagen, Jakob Oftebro, Birgitte Hjort Sorensen and Anders Baasmo Christiansen. “I didn’t know what to make of the screenplay,” Skarsgard remembers. “But after three films I trusted him.” Moland says: “The ambition is perhaps to blow the walls off some genre limitations… we don’t know if it’s a comedy until the audience laughs.” Skarsgard says Nils was an interesting character to tackle: “He has never been violent before, then something snaps in him when his son is killed and then he goes nuts.” Moland says the character is “grotesquely violent but he’s not very good at it.” Skarsgard adds: “It’s awfully sweet for so much blood.” Moland praises Skarsgard for doing his own driving in the film — not just a simple car, but a 40-ton snowplough. Shooting in the beautiful mountains of Norway’s
Moland is adamant Norway needs to keep supporting cultural film-making, not just commercial hits. “If we’re going to have a vibrant cinema in our own language, then we need to seed 20 films a year,” he says of the Norwegian government’s support for film. “We need a variety of films,” he says. He compares it to how there is backing for hundreds of thousands of children to be active by playing sport — only a few will go on to the Olympics but it’s still important for the rest to be healthy. Skarsgard appreciates working on a film with “huge machinery” like his Hollywood projects such as Thor, but also relishes the chance to do smaller projects in his native Scandinavia. “I come from the theatre and independent film, and when you work with less money, there’s more freedom to try new things and do things a banker might not like.” The pair obviously hope to work together again, and inspire each other to take creative risks. Moland says: “Every time we get together and start working, I start feeling brave when we’re working together. I have a lust for taking chances. Why not s take some real risks?” n