“It takes courage to have faith”

There is a four-year lapse between Borgen -your breakthrough show- and Ride Upon the Storm. Why such a gap?
Adam Price: I took the time to set up my company SAM Productions, with Søren Sveistrup, Meta Louise Foldager and StudioCanal. I also spent time writing for theatre. This is where we come from Lars [Mikkelsen] and I. Sometimes we have to go back to the well!

What triggered your desire to tackle religion after politics?  
AP: You could argue that religion is even more political than pure politics these days. You deal with religion when you discuss immigration, integration, the refugee crisis, how secular our societies really are. In these troubled times, if we could entice a debate, perhaps we wouldn’t be killing each other, building walls or digging trenches. And in Denmark we very much like the principle of discussing. Then on a dramatic point of view, I also thought that understanding people of faith and faith as the motivating factor for the characters’ actions would be very interesting. We’re used to realistic dramas, cops investigating crimes, straightforward plots, but here it’s more complex, people are motivated by their faith and the great dilemmas of being simply human and aspiring to being closer to God.

Could you be more specific about the storyline and how faith and religion are explored through the story?
AP: Our starting point is Christian faith, but then we tackle the great world religions, and the dilemmas of faith, how you search for a new meaning in your life and a new path when you lose faith. All these big ethical and existential questions are played out in the most intimate arena of a family –a father]Lars Mikkelsen], a mother [Ann Eleonora Jørgensen] and two sons [Morten Hee Andersen and Simon Sears]. So in essence the show is a family drama.

Were you inspired by the myth of Cain and Abel?
AP: Yes many religious myths from Christianity inspired me, but we deal with other religions as well.

Did you have Lars in mind when you first started writing the show? How do you interact with actors in the writing process?
AP: Fortunately, Lars came on board very early. We have a strong debate culture, so Lars reads and comments every script, several times. In the plane, coming to Cannes, we sat and discussed the show passionately.
LM: We don’t have millions of krone upfront to do a lot of re-writes on the script before the actors get it, so we have a very flat structured way of working. We get the script very early on, and comment on it.
AP: Yes when the script reaches the writers’ room, the lead actors have already commented on their parts. We have long discussions for every single script.
LM:…I’m very anal : ).
AP: It needs to be a tight fitted shirt.

Adam, I think you have a son and you have brothers. How much of your own experience is in the screenplay?
AP: Yes I have a son and a girl. Personally after having written Borgen, which was basically a feminist story written by men, I wanted to go into the relationship between fathers and sons and between brothers. Then of course, father and son do play quite a major part in Christianity. In Ride Upon the Storm, the family led by Lars comes from a dynasty of priests. We have a handful of families like this in Denmark, that go back several hundred years, where sons have followed fathers in the track of being priests. Personally I come from a weird family of artists, going back 250-300 years. We have been everything, from singers, clowns, dancers, we’ve always been entertainers. So being part of a long tradition is something that I live myself. I tried to put bits and pieces of that in the series, It’s a strange mix of love, obligation, and also….a slight pressure.

What about you Lars, how do you relate to your character and the issues in the show?
LM: Of course, Adam put a lot of himself in the script, but once in my hands, the character of Johannes changed into something else. What I realised early on is that there is so much that this man does wrong in his life that he has to be strong at verbalizing. He is very good at telling people what to do, pointing the ‘right’ way for people, while he probably chooses the wrong path for himself. That’s his dilemma. It’s not unfamiliar to me. It is easier to show a direction to follow than to follow it yourself. Playing Johannes was one of the best parts ever for me! He is rational and irrational, totally unpredictable.

The sons played Morten Hee Andersen and Simon Sears are relatively newcomers, aren’t they?
AP: Absolutely. Simon had played a few parts before, but for Morten this was his very first part as professional actor. This is part of DR’s strategy. They want big actors that you can relate to- such as Lars Mikkelsen and Ann Eleonora Jørgensen - but also new faces. That’s also a way to promote new talents.

Did you shoot in many different locations?
AP: Oh yes. We’ve travelled a lot! One son goes to war in the Middle East (we never mention the country, because Middle East is almost a state of mind). The other brother goes to the Himalayas where he discovers Buddhism. So it was shot in Nepal, while the Middle East scenes were shot in Spain.

It is very rare for a public broadcaster to commission 20 episodes in one go. Can you describe the special relationship you have with DR?
AP: DR is indeed very special. They do take very seriously their public service mandate. I don’t think we would have been able to get that commitment with anybody else because it takes courage to believe in a show like this. They haven’t really interfered. After having listened to the first idea pitch, they said: ‘this is very interesting. This is very much the times in which we’re living. Write it. Go and make it’. Then, it’s a technicality that the production economy of DR is spilled onto 20 episodes. The shows are so expensive that if you build a big set and set yourself high production ambitions, you don’t do it for only 10 episodes.

Adam as a chef, what is your recipe for keeping faith in today’s world?
AP: The character of Johannes played by Lars, often says that you need courage to actually put your faith in God, to step aside, to try to diminish your own part in your own life. And of course, we’re living in extremely individualistic and egoistic times, so the contrast is obvious. Everything is contained in Lars’ character. He has the highest aspirations of the whole show, but also the greatest demons…

Do you agree with Adam? Is courage key?
LM: Yes, it takes courage especially these days to have faith, to say I actually need to believe in something.

Ride Upon the Storm will premiere on DR1 in the fall.