Richard Dormer's roots are in Belfast and London theater, but the actor has lately become familiar to TV viewers on both sides of the Atlantic through his roles in Hunted, Hidden, and Game of Thrones. He now stars in Pivot TV's dark crime thriller Fortitude alongside an acclaimed international cast that includes Stanley Tucci, Christopher Eccleston, and Michael Gambon.
Dormer plays Dan Anderssen, the mysterious, taciturn sheriff of Fortitude, an arctic Norwegian mining town of 700 people that prides itself on being the safest place on Earth—until Fortitude is struck, in swift succession, by a suspicious death, a mysterious illness, and a brutal murder, with no shortage of suspicious characters with good reasons to kill. It is left to Anderssen, uneasily teamed with an interloping former FBI agent (played by Tucci), to unearth the sexual, political, corporate, and psychological secrets of this isolated community and track down the killer. "Is he a good sheriff, or a bad sheriff?" one character asks of Anderssen, as the town's head lawman is suddenly forced to deal with more than a rescue operation. It becomes clear that this is not just a question about his competence, as the bodies start to pile up and Anderssen's own motives become increasingly murky. Esquire.com spoke to Dormer last week about filming in Iceland, the enduring appeal of Scandinavian crime stories, and the dangers of skidoos (snowmobiles).
What attracted you to the production, and to the character of Dan Anderssen?
Richard Dormer: I suppose, first and foremost, it was the script. The casting people emailed me the first two scripts, and I was just hooked. It was a real page-turner. On the page I'd never seen anything or read anything like this before. This amazing, arctic landscape. And the characters, who spoke volumes in their silences. It's what they don't say that is interesting, what really drew me in. The interpersonal relationships are very dark in this moody world. And the character of Dan, I just loved the mystique about him. I loved the enigmatic quality. There's a real human, compassionate side to the man. But also there's a dark side—very quick to anger. I really wanted to explore that as an actor.
That ambiguity is really compelling. As you say, he's capable of acts of kindness and compassion, but there's this violence and loneliness in him, too. Many of the characters in Fortitude have that loneliness, but it seems profound in him.
RD: You're right, they're all lonely, but in Dan it's a kind of a desolation. We never see where he goes at night, we don't see him in any kind of domestic life. All he has is his uniform, and his job. He's a very strange character.
There have been so many crime narratives—books, TV shows, and movies—set in Scandinavia that have broken out in the English-speaking world in recent years. In the UK they call this trend Nordic Noir. Do you think there's something about that part of the world that lends itself to that kind of story?
RD: I think it harks back to ancient storytelling. The Norse myths. So much Western storytelling comes from Scandinavia. I've read that in the past storytellers would travel to Iceland and exchange stories. It's kind of the birthplace of great storytelling. It's about human beings being pushed to their absolute limits in an environment where they wouldn't be able to survive without ingenuity or a hunting rifle—or an axe, if you're a Viking. You're right on the edge of civilization and only the strong survive.
You're also a writer. Does that influence the way you approach a character? What do you think is the greatest challenge of doing this type of long-form show?
RD: I suppose it's juggling all the storylines and having a good arc, and having all the storylines reach a crescendo and resolution. I think they've done that very well in Fortitude. You can feel the momentum in the first six episodes, that it's leading up to something. I think the benefit of being a writer is that I'm looking for the subtext on the page, because all good writing has subtext. And as a writer, you look at the big scope of things, the big story, rather than just your individual story line, because I think it's important to know what you're in and how you fit into it. And how you can tell as one character, how your storyline is going to meet up with all these other storylines. So I think as a writer you see the big picture, and as an actor you're thinking of all the minutiae, all the very small details.
Creator Simon Donald has said in interviews that the script developed as it was being filmed. He said that UK productions are often more scripted and finalized going into production, unlike American shows, which have longer seasons and more episodes being written during the filming of the season. But Fortitude, he said, had more of that Hollywood "writer's room" approach to it.
RD: Right, because I think after they got all the actors on board they watched everybody interacting and it started to color the writers' perceptions and changed slightly their perceptions of the characters, because the actors were coloring their writing. So, yeah it definitely changed—not the broad spectrum of the story but just little particulars about how a character reaches a certain point in the journey. It definitely was colored by what we were doing. Simon told me that watching what I was doing in the dailies changed his mind about Dan's final journey toward the end of the story. That was very exciting to me, that it was a moving thing, changing in the process.
One of the things I've enjoyed about watching the show, is that I have no idea where it is going. Many shows offer surprises and reversals, but they often, however fun and entertaining, feel unearned and cheap when they happen. But four episodes in can see this going in so many plausible directions.
RD: It was the same for the actors. We were only getting scripts like two weeks in advance of shooting, so nobody knew what was happening next. It was twenty-four actors asking each other, "So do you think you're going to die? Am I going to die?" That was fun.
So you didn't even know the fate of your own character?
RD: They wanted everyone to have a sense of unease. Of not knowing what's going to happen next. You don't know who's going to die next, who the murder is. The arc of it had been worked out, so I was told, "Dan will do this so many episodes from now," so I knew I'd live that long. But it was always a surprise when a prominent character died.
Was that the first time you'd ever worked like that?
RD: Definitely. Especially on something that lasted over such a long period of time. I had never been involved in anything—apart from theater—that was more than six months. This really gave the actors a chance to grow into the characters, to really start to care about their character. So it becomes a part of you. Sometimes you even start to sound like the character, because you're living and breathing them every day on the set. It gets into your bones.
How did you prepare?
RD: I worked with a voice coach for about two months, to get the Norwegian accent, with that American color to it. And I think I just trusted my instincts. On the page, Dan was a much gruffer character, but the way I was doing it, everything he said was said with a smile. It felt very natural. Sometimes it takes a long time, and you have to do backstory. But with this one—maybe they just cast me well, but I seemed to settle into it very easily.
American audience will probably know you best as Beric Dondarrion from Game of Thrones. So will we be seeing Beric again?
RD: Well, they haven't told me about it, so I don't think so.
Have you watched much of Game of Thrones?
RD: You know I haven't seen a single episode! I hear it's amazing, but I missed out on the first couple of seasons, and thought, Where am I going to find the time? Then I got the part of Beric. Beric was a noble character, a leader of men. Kind of like Robin Hood. So I thought, that's how I'll play the guy.
What was that experience like, compared to Fortitude?
RD: One was fire and the other was ice. Beric was one of the hottest experiences in my life. Filming in a cave, with a flaming sword, in that leather armor. It was boiling hot. It topped 40 degrees (104 degrees Fahrenheit) in the studio. Fortitude was very cold. Both productions were designed by Jemma Jackson and I think they both have that epic look. She's a genius.
It's a beautiful-looking show, with stunning location scenes. How long were you in Iceland, filming?
RD: The whole production was three months in Iceland and three months doing interiors in West London.
That time in Iceland, with the glacier shots and riding around in the boats, it must have been spectacular.
RD: Normally when go on holiday I go where it is as hot as it can be! But I couldn't believe they were paying us to do this show. I spent two days flying in a helicopter around the largest glacier in Europe. It's like a mythical world. And in the speedboat, we spent two days out just gliding around the fjords. And the skidoos. It was like being in a James Bond film. It was very exciting. Toys for boys—who wouldn't enjoy that?
Any close calls?
RD: My first jaunt on a skidoo, the throttle stuck, and I slammed into the side of a lighting truck at about 30 mph. Lucky I was wearing my fur hat, or I might have broken my skull. I think that was one of the first days. It was a narrow escape.
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