My novel 'Wolf Brother' is set in northern Scandinavia during the late Stone Age, so I was aware from the start of Norse influences. I used some Norse names, and the soul-eater Thiazzi is based on the Norse storm giant, Thiassi.
'Thor' has got several big battles in it, a reckless, headstrong young hero who has to confront his past and deal with a complicated relationship with his father, it has lots of savage Europeans hacking each other to death at various points, and all of this sounded very much like 'Henry V.'
The education of going through the 'Thor' experience was great.
I'm very proud of 'Valhalla Rising.'
RUNE is another one I'm really looking forward to.
'Valhalla Rising' is a fusion of my upbringing, basically: everything I grew up loving and wanted to make a film of.
I used to like Norse mythology, Greek mythology, Egyptian mythology. All mythology!
'Vikings' has been so many different challenges, and some of that is, at times, you have to be big and imposing and violent and vicious, and then you have be pulled back and withdrawn and just more layers and more time to portray those layers, too.
I know 'Vikings' isn't really based in magic, but it goes back to Old World spirituality and different religions, and a lot of voodoo.
I read a lot of Icelandic sagas when I was young. I've always been interested in the Viking culture.
My first memory of the public library is of lugging home a volume of Norse myths as heavy as a thunder-god's hammer.
I'm from Norway, and when kids were reading comics, I was reading Icelandic and Norwegian sagas about the Vikings. The glorification of violence, their mentality, and their way of living - that was part of my own education growing up.
One of the things that I wanted to do post-'Haven' is go after some shows I was a fan of already, and 'Vikings' was on the list.
There are so many good stories about the Vikings.
With 'Vikings,' I had the task of making these people interesting and, to a point, sympathetic.
When you're a Viking, you never know when you're going to get the axe.
