How The Northman director brought Björk out of acting retirement
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It's been years since Icelandic singer Björk had acted on screen. That would be 22 years since her Oscar-nominated, Palme d'Or-winning film, 2000's Dancer in the Dark, after which she said she would never make another movie; 17 years since she appeared in the experimental work Drawing Restraint 9; and 14 years since her brief cameo appearance in Icelandic comedy series Dagvaktin. But director Robert Eggers couldn't think of anyone else to play the mystical Seeress in his Viking revenge movie The Northman.
"Björk is the like pop shamanist for planet Earth. Who else can just step onto set and be a Seeress?" Eggers tells EW. So, how did it all happen? Like Amleth's (Alexander Skarsgård) journey in The Northman, it was all fate.
Focus Features Björk appears as the mystical Seeress in 'The Northman.'
Robin Carolan, a co-composer on The Northman with Sebastian Gainsborough, is longtime friends with Björk and collaborated with her through his English music label Tri Angle. Carolan introduced Eggers and his wife to the singer, who then introduced Eggers to Sjón, the Icelandic poet who ended up co-writing The Northman with the filmmaker.
"Sjón had known Björk since they were teenagers, and it just was this familial environment," Eggers explains. "So, I think that's why Björk was down to do it."
Having one of the world's foremost avant-garde pop singers on a film set was pretty comparable to what most of us would imagine. Eggers remembers bringing Björk to Ireland, where production designer Craig Lathrop transformed a quarry to look like the volcanic Mount Hekla in Iceland.
"Björk visited set and I said, 'What do you think? Does it look like Iceland?' She's like, 'Yeah, it's Ireland in drag,'" Eggers recalled with a laugh.
Aidan Monaghan/Focus Features Alexander Skarsgård stars as Amleth, a Viking prince out for vengeance against the man who killed his father and took his other, in 'The Northman.'
Skarsgård had his own fond experience with Björk. One sequence in the film sees her Seeress character materialize before Amleth to speak of fate and his predestined journey to avenge his father (Ethan Hawke), who was slain by his uncle Fjölnir (Claes Bang).
"It was an incredible night. And to shoot it in that burned-out barn, I don't even think you see [in the finished film], there was a full moon that night," Skarsgård says. "The moon was massive... We did the scene, and the moon was just right behind her head, this crazy gorgeous, beautiful full moon. It just made perfect sense in that moment. I could see it through the hole in this burned-out barn. Just the way she looked, and knowing that this is the first time she stepped out of retirement after 17 years, it was truly an honor."
The Northman will open in theaters this April 22.
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