If you’ve seen Robert Eggers’ astonishing double-whammy of The Witch and The Lighthouse, you’ll have a sense of his directorial voice – psychological genre fare, steeped in the elements, with dirt under its fingernails and brutality around every corner. Now, with The Northman, he’s going big – keeping the same outlook, but amping it up into a visceral Viking epic starring Alexander Skarsgård as hulking Norse warrior Amleth. Shot out in the wilderness with epic long takes and practical effects galore, it promises a no-holds-barred revenge story with moments of eye-popping action.
Or, should that be, throat-ripping. Because in one sequence, Amleth lets rip (literally) on an enemy’s neck at the end of a none-more-ambitious extended take, taking some 30 attempts to get right. “It was the end of a very long, complex shot of the Viking berserkers raiding a Slav village,” Skarsgård tells Empire. “The choreography was so difficult, with all these elements, 50 people fighting simultaneously, the extras and the horses… making it look perfect was a real undertaking.” And then, there was the moment he really had to, er, sink his teeth into. “That climax, where I rip a guy’s throat out and howl at the moon… it was primal. I just let it all out,” he laughs. “I was exhausted, and I think you see it in the shot. I was a wreck. Truly a wreck.”
Having wanted to make a Viking movie for years, the uncompromising process of creating The Northman had a major effect on its leading man. “It’s a tough act to follow,” he admits. “A lot of stuff that I might have said yes to a couple of years ago, I’m just not that keen on doing anymore. I feel a bit lost. I don’t know where to go from here. This experience… it definitely changed me. I think it changed most people who were on that mountaintop.” Bring on the berserker action.
Read Empire’s full feature on The Northman – speaking to Eggers and his cast, including Skarsgård, Anya Taylor-Joy, Claes Bang, Ethan Hawke, and Willem Dafoe – in the Doctor Strange In The Multiverse Of Madness issue, on sale Thursday 17 March and available to order online here. The Northman comes to UK cinemas from 15 April.