the Cold bites in the cheeks at Strömkajen in Stockholm. It is the beginning of december and the snow has not yet fallen. The clock is only two in the afternoon, but the sun already sharing their last minutes of light. The city painted in blue and orange.
Inside, the Grand Hotel, it is much warmer. Blood red antique chairs and chandeliers adorn the ancient corridors. A contrast to the urban environment as “the Conductor” takes place in.
this was anything other than to make further any regular polisserie.
“What drew me to the project was precisely the arena,” says series director Mikael Håfström in a reference to the late 1990s Moscow.
– the Characters have been thrown there by different reasons, and all carry different secrets and ambitions. This was nothing more than to do another regular polisserie. This was something else.
Director Director meets DN in a suite at the luxury hotel, along with Adam Pålsson.
If we do not do so will no one else do it, so daring it is.
” I wondered how you would portray this time. But the more I thought about it the more fiffigare was it to describe the gap in time with a Swedish lead actress, ” says Pålsson.
– It is an intelligent way to make the story accessible to an audience in Sweden. I also got the feeling that if we do not do so will no one else do it, so daring it is.
financier Tom Blixen (Adam Pålsson), who begins a risky deal to help his friend Frederick (Christopher Wagelin). But also himself when Blixen is likely to lose his job in the financial world. This leads to a cold-blooded battle between the millionaires, oligarchs and their private armies. The series is based on “the Conductor from Saint-Petersburg”, the first book in the trilogy “Moscow noir” by Camilla Grebe and Paul Leander-Engström.
Read more: Adam Pålsson play financier in new thrillerserie
the Series, set at the turn of the millennium, the lawless, the time before Vladimir Putin became prime minister and then president. A parenthesis in the Russian history when capitalism thrived in a postsovjetiskt, the closest to the lawless, society.
It was while a time when democracy was possible. There were very big economic values that would change the ownership from state to private during this time, reminds Pålsson, who previously played Rasmus in “never Wipe tears without gloves” (2012) and national treasure Ted Gärdestad in the movie “Ted – for the sake of love” (2018).
After nearly every inspelningsdag set a babusjka in the couch.
” And who was first there? Of course, those who had already built up an infrastructure illegal. When the market was so free, it was a hundrameterslopp where the bad guys started fifty feet above all others.
to master both English and Russian in order to portray the character Tom Blixen. And he only had a few weeks to do it.
– After nearly every inspelningsdag when I locked up my apartment in Lithuania’s capital, Vilnius, where we were filming, there was a babusjka in the couch. She was there so that I would learn tomorrow’s lines, ” he says, laughing.
the Director Håfström, who directed and wrote the script for four of the series ‘eight episodes, adds:
” You had quite a lot of replicas on the English also. It was then your character is quite free to float around in three different languages, Swedish, English and Russian.
Read more: Now tv-the bad guys Russian who during the cold war
the Tv series “the Conductor” is Håfströms first project in almost fifteen years. He left his home country for an international career after the oscar nominated “Evil” (2003), which he both directed and wrote the script for after Jan guillou’s novel. International productions is all nothing new for him when he directed movies like Stephen king’s “1408” (2007), “The rite” (2011), with Anthony Hopkins in the lead role, and the section of the Netflixserien “Bloodline” (between 2015 and 2017). Next year will be his Swedish journalistthriller about Thomas Quick premiere.
It is so fucking politically turbulent now both in Russia and surrounding states. It is lawless and journalists get murdered, responds the Director.
– It is not so far away geographically, but it feels like a completely different world.
Read more: David Dencik and Jonas Karlsson in the Swedish blockbuster movie about the Quick-case
Pålsson that he as a young man was just “Evil” and had a “tiny role” as a student becomes disheartened. Thus, it is not the first time Pålsson and the Director are working together, in all cases, in the technical sense.
” I saw you go and keep your arms around Andreas Wilson and Gustaf Skarsgård when you were talking about tomorrow’s scenes. I sat and froze and was directed by an assistant director. Then I thought, ‘the bastard, one day he’ll ask me to play the lead in one of his movies!’. But I could never satiate my revanschbehov, for you disappeared the abroad, laughing Pålsson.
the Director admits that he is not at all remembered Pålsson name from the recording of “Evil”.
” I wondered if you had written “Evil” just to impress, but as soon as you stepped through the door so I knew you.
Pålsson grins against his director, and pats himself on the cheeks.
” Mm… the same babyface as fifteen years ago.
