Netflix’s Norsemen Co-creators Jon Iver Helgaker and Jonas Torgersen

22nd March 2019

Jon Iver Helgaker and Jonas Torgersen join us to discuss their hit Norwegian show Norsemen. It’s a sitcom about vikings. It has a particularly Norwegian sense of comedy. Deadpan but brutal.
It’s set around the year 790 AD. Filmed in Norway’s wilderness. Shot simultaneously in English and Norwegian. Throughout the series we see the villagers and vikings deal with daily life. The vikings pillage. The vikings fight amongst themselves.
Jon and Jonas will give us a behind the scenes look at the show. Plus,
they’ll explain Taco Friday: the latest food craze in Norway. The first two seasons of Norsemen are available to stream on Netflix now.
WARNING: There’s some talk about sexual assault in this conversation. Nothing graphic, just some discussion of the use of it in comedy, in the abstract. If you’re sensitive to these kinds of topics, we figured we’d give you a heads up.

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Photo: Netflix
Netflix’s Norsemen co-creators Jon Iver Helgaker and Jonas Torgersen
WARNING: There’s some talk about sexual assault in this conversation. Nothing graphic, just some discussion of the use of it in comedy, in the abstract. If you’re sensitive to these kinds of topics, we figured we’d give you a heads up.

Jon Iver Helgaker and Jonas Torgersen join us to discuss their hit Norwegian show Norsemen. It’s a sitcom about vikings. It has a particularly Norwegian sense of comedy. Deadpan but brutal. It’s set around the year 790 AD. Throughout the series we see the villagers and vikings deal with daily life. The vikings pillage. The vikings fight amongst themselves. They sacrifice slaves.

The jokes are great. Sometimes it’s straight-faced like The Office, sometimes they play it big and absurd like Monty Python. Except, the violence is real, and their actions have real consequences to the storyline. And at the heart of the show, modernity is closing in on them. New inventions. New norms. Pillaging towns doesn’t pay like it used to.

Jon and Jonas will give us a behind the scenes look at the show. Plus,
they’ll explain Taco Friday: the latest food craze in Norway. The first two seasons of Norsemen are available to stream on Netflix now.

Check out this interview on YouTube!

In this episode...

Senior Producer
Producer
Maximum Fun Producer
Maximum Fun Production Fellow

Guests

  • Jon Iver Helgaker
  • Jonas Torgersen

About the show

Bullseye is a celebration of the best of arts and culture in public radio form. Host Jesse Thorn sifts the wheat from the chaff to bring you in-depth interviews with the most revered and revolutionary minds in our culture.

Bullseye has been featured in Time, The New York Times, GQ and McSweeney’s, which called it “the kind of show people listen to in a more perfect world.” Since April 2013, the show has been distributed by NPR.

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Maximum Fun Production Fellow

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