EXCLUSIVE: Shooting upcoming Netflix pic Against The Ice was no straightforward task, as its stars and director reveal to Deadline in a first interview as a trio.
The movie, which premieres at the Berlin International Film Festival on February 15, stars Nikolaj Coster-Waldau (Game Of Thrones) and Joe Cole (Peaky Blinders) as two members of a real Danish expedition (the Alabama Expedition) between 1906 and 1908 that sought to prove that Greenland was only one island (which was disputed by the U.S.) by crossing it on foot and sledge.
Coster-Waldau plays Ejnar Mikkelsen, an experienced captain, while Cole plays Iver Iversen, an engineer who volunteers for the perilous trek despite his lack of experience.
To capture the essence of the dangerous and at times seemingly suicidal mission, the film team, led by director Peter Flinth, opted to utilize minimal green screen, relying instead on shooting in the real ice and snow (with Iceland primarily standing in for Greenland).
That endeavor resulted in a shoot filled with mishaps and hairy moments, as the trio recount to us below. From battling a heavyweight judo champion standing in for a CGI polar bear, to being stranded on a glacier during a snowstorm, the experience was no straightforward task, but did proved exhilarating for its stars.
Coster-Waldau also talks about being reunited with his Game Of Thrones father (Charles Dance) for the shoot, while Cole reveals he’s never watched the HBO fantasy series.
Netflix will release Against The ice on March 2 following its Berlin premiere. Below is an exclusive clip from the movie.
DEADLINE: To what extent were you all familiar with the Alabama Expedition before making this movie?
NIKOLAJ COSTER-WALDAU: I didn’t know anything about it. Peter sent me the book, Two Against the Ice by Ejnar Mikkelsen, years ago. The first film I ever did when I was in drama school was a short with Peter, we always remained friends. I was blown away by the book. We’ve seen survival stories before but there was something about the way he wrote, Mikkelsen, and the love he had for Iversen really came through in the book.
DEADLINE: You co-wrote the screenplay for this one Nikolaj.
NIKOLAJ COSTER-WALDAU: I’ve been writing for a long time. I co-write a film in 1997 (Wildside), that was also actually done in Iceland as well. For the last ten years I’ve been writing with Joe Derrick, we have various things, this is the first big one we’ve got going.
DEADLINE: Is this a well-known story in Denmark?
PETER FLINTH: No, it’s not. Not many people know about them, they’re not big national heroes, that was interesting to look into.
DEADLINE: Tell me about casting Joe.
FLINTH: Not many people know about Ivar, he came to Greenland without knowing anything about it. That was totally like Joe when he arrived in the snow in Iceland shortly before we started shooting. I don’t think he even had a warm jacket, he had to borrow gear and was straight out with the dogs. That was totally Ivar.
JOE COLE: I came onto the project relatively late. I think that was Peter’s clever casting, giving me no information and me coming out at the last minute, it was all part of the process.
COSTER-WALDAU: We did talk about that Joe, when you were there, the dogs are not something you just pick up, you were like ‘fuck, I don’t know how to do this’. That was perfect for the character.
Casting Joe was one of those wonderful, lucky coincidences. Baltasar Kormákur, who was producing the film, his agent said he knew he [Cole] was available now. We saw Prayer Before Dawn, the film that Joe did, me and Peter thought it was incredible. I hadn’t seen Joe’s work before, it’s so rare to see someone who’s that good, that accomplished… it’s just because I’m terrible at watching stuff.
Joe read the script, we had a long Skype, and it was really annoying because he didn’t say ‘yes’ right away. He said ‘I’ll think about it’! I feel so stupid now, Joe had obviously done a lot of work I should have seen.
COLE: I still haven’t seen Game Of Thrones if it’s any consolation.
FLINTH: It was also the peak of Covid. It was difficult in the weeks before shooting. Nikolaj and I were sitting in apartments next to each other in Reykjavik and we couldn’t get together because he was in quarantine. We finally we got together, the three of us, for a costume fitting.
DEADLINE: It does seem like a particularly challenging set of circumstances to shoot in. The film is effectively a two-hander, how did you build that chemistry without getting together beforehand?
COSTER-WALDAU: From the beginning we wanted to shoot everything on location, to use the actual elements. We didn’t want to do much CGI stuff. Everything outdoors is outdoors. You don’t have to worry about acting because you react to the elements all the time. You never know with chemistry, people talk about that all the time but if you have good actors you can act. I’ve never had a fear of bad chemistry, I have a fear of bad actors, but that’s a different story.
COLE: Chemistry gets banded around, it doesn’t make any sense to me. If you have good actors who manage to bring characters to life then that is watchable. Things like chemistry reads in auditions baffle me.
FLINTH: It’s also a question of professionalism. When you’re out there and it’s hitting you in the face with cold wind and ice, a professional actor will say, ‘ok, let’s do it again’, giving you the same energy of performance. That’s what it takes when you do this kind of movie. I have to thank both of you so much.
DEADLINE: Tell us more about the challenges of shooting in those extreme conditions.
FLINTH: We had to be rescued from a glacier…
COSTER-WALDAU: That was insane. We were on a glacier in Iceland, there was a storm coming in but they kept saying it was going to calm down by lunch. It got worse and worse, we couldn’t stand up, there were hurricane-force winds. At lunchtime we had to get in this hut, things were flying around, a van had rocks flying through the windows. We were 50-60 people huddled together and we had to do a roll call for everyone to make sure we were all there, because if we weren’t we’d have had to send rescue teams out.
There was another one. We had dogs, they’re not actors, they’re very difficult. At the end of one day we had a scene sledging over some rocks, I lost control, I’m not very proud of it. I saw the whole crew standing there with dogs and sledges coming towards them, the dog handler was jumping on the sledge, shouting abuse at me. Nobody was hurt, thankfully, and it looks incredible. In the original audio you can hear all the screaming.
FLINTH: The handler was shouting, ‘not alright, not alright’.
DEADLINE: Were you able to stay out there on set?
COSTER-WALDAU: No, I wish we could have done. One of the upsides of Covid is that there were no tourists in Iceland, we got great deals on hotels. And we could shoot anywhere, normally there are tourists everywhere.
DEADLINE: As actors was this particularly physically demanding, being out there in the cold?
COLE: Yes, it’s uncomfortable, trudging through thick snow for hours on end, but that adds to the whole experience. You wouldn’t change it, it makes the job of an actor easier, you don’t have to do that much acting, you just have to live it. Being out there for weeks on end with nobody around aside from the film crew was really quite special. On the days I wasn’t working I’d go on long hikes and send Nikolaj a pin, telling him if I wasn’t back in five hours, there was a problem. I’d never been out there, completely on my own, for so much time. It was a nice gateway into those characters.
DEADLINE: [SMALL SPOILER ALERT]: For me, best animal mauling scene since The Revenant – how did you film it?
COSTER-WALDAU: I got a small concussion that day. They got hold of the heavyweight judo champion of Iceland, who also does work as a stunt guy. He was the bear. On the day, I wanted it to look as good as possible, so I let my head go and he really went for it, throwing me around like a rag doll. Very strong man. We’ve been watching cuts of this scene and it’s me and a guy in a brown suit with a weird bear helmet on. It looks ridiculous. Now [with the CGI], it’s incredible.
DEADLINE: Where was your stunt double?
COSTER-WALDAU: Yeah exactly, that’s what I was saying…
FLINTH: I had tried to convince everyone to shoot with a real polar bear. I had seen a film with Max Von Sydow from the 1980s where one of the expedition members is struggling with a real-life polar bear and they shot it, it looks really good, but you couldn’t do that today.
COSTER-WALDAU: He’s not joking.
DEADLINE: I can’t imagine they have polar bear wranglers in the film industry, that can’t be a thing.
FLINTH: They do! In Norway on the island of Svalbard.
DEADLINE: Sounds like you dodged a bullet there Nikolaj…
COSTER-WALDAU: I think so too.
DEADLINE: You’re only in a few scenes together but what was it like reuniting with your Game Of Thrones dad [Charles Dance]?
COSTER-WALDAU: That was fantastic. I reached out to him and said I wanted him to be in the movie. He said, [putting on a perfect Charles Dance voice] ‘are you asking me for a favour darling?’ He said he’d come up to Iceland, we needed his presence for those scenes. Funnily enough he’s right now shooting again in Iceland with dog sledding.
