Bear necessities
The first original Nordic drama on Disney+, Koka björn (To Cook A Bear) is a dark and visually dramatic adaptation of Mikael Niemi’s novel set in 19th century Sweden. Star Gustaf Skarsgård and director Trygve Allister Diesen reveal the show’s recipe.
Swedish star Gustaf Skarsgård has often starred in series that transport him – and viewers – to distinct worlds, from roles in historical dramas Vikings and Utvandrarna (The Emigrants) to playing Merlin in fantasy series Cursed and the head of operations at the company behind the titular, futuristic theme park in Westworld.
Yet the landscapes and environments in his latest project, Koka björn (To Cook A Bear), presented him with a “universe” he hadn’t ever experience before, one that is “meaty and grimy and spectacular and mythological at once,” he tells DQ. “I was really attracted by that universe, and then these really strong characters, who are the perfect balance between being archetypal but also paradoxical, with really strong relationships.”
Announced in 2022 as the first Nordic original series for Disney+, the six-part series is based on the novel by Mikael Niemi and blends crime drama and mystery to tell a story set in northern Sweden in 1852. Arriving with his family in the isolated village of Kengis, a pastor (Skarsgård) hopes to instill his strong belief in justice and change. When he challenges the local elite, he faces resistance as his fiery sermons ignite hope for a better life among the poor farmers.
But the village is left shaken by a series of disappearances and frightening rumours of bear attacks. When the pastor and his Sámi foster son, Jussi, lead the search, they make a horrific discovery that creates a deep rift in the village’s fragile community.
The pastor is then drawn into a dangerous battle, where forbidden love, power struggles and brutal acts push the village toward a violent reckoning where no one is safe.
Produced by Anagram, the series is directed by Trygve Allister Diesen (Wisting) from scripts by Jesper Harrie (Fartblinda). The cast also includes Ane Dahl Torp, Magnus Krepper, Jonas Karlsson, Tyra Wingren, Simon J Berger, Emil Kárlsen, Johan Widerberg and Pernilla August.
Skarsgård hadn’t read Niemi’s novel until he landed the part of the pastor, and then threw himself into a book that carries themes of traditional Westerns and their frontier spirit.
“I love that he’s so clearly paradoxical in so many ways,” the actor says of his character. “On one hand, he’s a representative for the church. On the other hand, he’s a rebel within the church. There’s so many different aspects of contrast and complexity within him, and he can be so judgmental of people’s drinking, while at the same time, he’s clearly quite obsessed in himself in terms of how he wants to save people, solve these crimes and be a good person. It’s just great fun.”
When he turns detective to investigate the disappearances, “he’s clearly stepping out of his station,” Skarsgård continues, as he struggles to balance the needs of his own family and his community.
“He has one of those laser beam type of minds that really makes for a good detective, but not always the best father or husband. In a weird way, he thoroughly enjoys it as well, because he has that obsessive mind. He’s a man of details.”
But while he has genuine love for his foster son, and his wife Britta proves to be the grounding force in his life, “he’s there to stir shit up,” Skarsgård admits. “He clearly antagonises the centres of power in the community, but rightly so, in a sense. There’s definitely an element of pride and vanity in his attempt to do so, which is going to backfire, obviously, as it tends to do.”
Becoming the pastor, Skarsgård adopted a strong accent and also had to learn some of the North Sámi language, which the pastor speaks quite a bit of in the series. That meant he spent a lot of time with a dialect coach to bring the right “texture” to the character.
“I loved having to learn those lines phonetically, sound by sound,” he says. “Then finding a physicality, he’s a strider in many senses. He’s out there, he loves the nature, he comes from that place really. So he’s got a long gait and high shoulders, because he carries the world on his shoulders, and tries to save it vainly.”
There’s also a strong visual approach to the series and its characters. “Sometimes we go full Sherlock Holmes, with pipe and coat,” Skarsgård laughs. “That’s what I like about the universe that we’ve created. It has quite a high ceiling in terms of how stylistic it is, with strong make-ups and silhouettes in the costume design and everything that allows for a quite theatrical style, which I just find delicious. I’ve just allowed myself to go into these different extremes of the character, which was fun.”
In fact, the pastor sports slightly different appearances as the ‘strider’ and the preacher, although Skarsgård is wearing the same wig. “When he’s out in the field, it’s always hanging down and there’s a lot of motion in it. And then whenever he’s in church, he’s combed it back and keeps it really tight,” he notes. “It was fun playing around with those different strong silhouettes of the character and allow for the contrast and allow the paradox as well.”
The rural nature of the show’s settings means the characters are also often covered in mud and dirt. “I could write a PhD in dirt make-up,” adds Skarsgård, who will take the lead in a new take of Swedish detective series Wallander. “For some reason, I always find myself in projects where I’m dirty, whether it’s Vikings or The Emigrants. I’m just always out in these extreme conditions where I get really dirty.”
Behind the camera is director Diesen, who directed all six episodes and jumped at the chance to shoot the adaptation of a book he had first read in Norwegian when it first came out in 2017, several years before he read a script. He liked it so much he has since given the book as a present on multiple occasions, and even enquired as to whether the film rights had been taken.
At that time, they had. Then, more recently, when he got a call asking if he wanted to read a script, “I was nervous, because I thought, ‘How can you capture it?’ The book is fantastic,” he says. “It’s a crime novel written by a writer who is not a crime novelist, so it’s like literature but crime at the same time.
“The question was how do you capture the spirit of that, and it was so rich, it has so many nuances and it was so wild. And how would you do that on a Scandinavian budget?”
The answer to that was with Disney. “The other question is how can you give nature the room it needs to be important, because in the book nature is very important,” the director notes. “That’s another thing that became important for me, to bring in that element, to bring the rawness of nature, the beauty of nature and the harshness of nature to the story.”
The show features countless scenes in the wilderness, forests or beside lakes and rivers, which serve as quiet moments lined up against the show’s more procedural, crime-driven sequences that will drive viewers through the series.
It means Diesen’s approach to filming To Cook a Bear was always “big, bold, beautiful,” – the words that characterised his pitch to Disney.
“In my world, this is a Western. I want to treat it like a Western in a different setting, and I want nature to be part of it,” he says. “I want you to be able to put your hand on the screen and feel it. I didn’t want anything shiny. I want texture like nature has.”
The challenge then was to find the right backdrops for the show, with all but a handful of scenes shot on upwards of 40 locations across Sweden and Finland. At one stage, Diesen slept in eight hotels in 10 nights. But the textures in the show aren’t just in the scenery, however, but in the character design, their costumes and make-up.
“We hired very famous Swedish actors, and I’m not saying we made them unrecognisable, but we made them very different than what they used to be, which is great because we get to see really great actors in a new way, in a new physicality,” Diesen says. “For instance, in the book, Gustaf’s character, the pastor, is a short, stocky man. But of course, you get Gustaf, you get the best actor. That’s more important. But then it’s hard to find a sheriff because in the book, the sheriff is a giant and the pastor is small. We had a problem, so we got one of the best Swedish actors I know and we gave him a big body but in a different way. That was very interesting character change.”
On set, the director sought to build a team spirit among the cast and crew and, in particular, forge a close partnership with his lead actor.
“I always try to cast my lead that way, because you want a partner. You don’t want a parrot saying lines. You want a partner in crime,” he says. “As a director, it is a great asset to have a good relationship with your main characters, because they will help you when other things work against you. They make it easier to get an extra half an hour overtime or they will speed up a little if you want to get that last shot before the end of the day. It is so much easier to work when you work in that fashion.”
“He placed a tremendous amount of trust in me, which I’m really grateful for,” Skarsgård says of Diesen. “We had a lot of fun and, as it always is, some challenging days, whether it’s schedules and locations, all of that usual stuff, so the pressure is always on. But we managed really well.”
As a fan of the original book, Diesen hopes the series – which is now streaming with all episodes available on Disney+ – will offer viewers the chance to immerse themselves in a unique story that questions good and evil, and truth and lies.
“I just hope they get the same excitement I get from seeing these places with these people and getting to know these characters, particularly the pastor,” he adds. “I became very fond of them as characters.”
Like that? Watch this! Suggested by AI, selected by DQ
Trapped: An isolated Icelandic town is thrown into chaos after a murder, with the local police chief battling both the elements and distrustful townspeople to uncover the truth.
The Chestnut Man: In Copenhagen, two detectives investigate a murder case complicated by local legend, political interference and a community on edge.
Midnight Sun: A French detective joins Swedish police in a remote Lapland community to solve a brutal murder with roots in the local Sámi population.
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