THE LIGHTHOUSE DIRECTOR ROBERT EGGERS TRAVELS BACK TO THE AGE OF VIKINGS, WITCHES, AND THE NORTHMAN.
ROBERT EGGERS DID NOT KNOW he was making a Viking movie when he sat down with Alexander Skarsgård. The pair were supposed to be having one of those typical industry meetings where talent trades notes, and each party gets a feel for the other person. “Meetings about nothing,” Eggers confides a few years later. And yet, when the writer-director of The Witch and The Lighthouse met the star of Big Little Lies and The Legend of Tarzan, one word came up time and again: Vikings. “Maybe it was a meeting about nothing or maybe Alex had specific designs for me, I’m not entirely sure,” Eggers tells Den of Geek now. “But we sat and started talking, and quickly he said that he had been trying to make a Viking movie for some time with Lars Knudsen, who was one of the producers of The Witch and a friend of mine, and I didn’t know this. So I said, ‘Well, I have a Viking movie for you,’ even though I didn’t really.” Nordic sagas have started from less. As Eggers says, he didn’t plan to make a Viking movie as his third feature after completing the horror films The Witch and The Lighthouse, but as with those highly specific period pieces, he’s long had a fascination with the history 46
DEN OF GEEK
and mythology of the Viking Age. It began with his wife reading old Norse literature and Icelandic sagas, most of which were written in the 13th century. Initially, Eggers resisted also diving into them because the “stereotype of the big macho, hairy, pillaging lug was not appealing.” But after going to Iceland himself, the director became mesmerized with the mountains and glaciers, the caverns and falls. He was enchanted by the land—and the history therein. “The landscapes, and I’m not alone in this, were just incredibly inspiring,” Eggers recalls. “So then I went home and on my wife’s recommendation started to read this fantastic literature and it got me into Vikings.” Thus when Skarsgård suggested making a Viking movie, Eggers might not have had a specific story in mind, but he
IMAGE CREDITS: AIDAN MONAGHAN / FOCUS FEATURES
BY DAVID CROW