In continuation of our series of interviews leading up to the Season Two premiere of History’s Vikings, we present you with the second part of our exclusive conversation with Donal Logue. Following up our first look into Gotham, I got to dig into the world of King Horik with Donal and get a look into the mind of the master Viking strategist with a preview of the epic confrontation that will run throughout Season Two.
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The first episode of Season Two moves fast, particularly in the opening battle scene where you get to go out and mix it up a little bit. Did you have to do a lot of prep before those scenes were filmed?
Yeah, we did specific stunt training. They had an amazing stunt crew, there was a core of seven, eight guys that were based over in the UK and they were great. I think most everybody [in Vikings] had some experience doing things like that especially, you know like Clive, and over the years just ended up doing so much of that stuff everybody was a pretty quick study, I think.
Part of what made these scenes work so well is that they were shot in these incredible real life locations, rather than an indoor set. How does that play into your mindset for the character? Does it help to be out in these gorgeous environments?
Oh, completely. First of all, good call. The first battle scene was in an atypical Irish spot, because it had been an old mine in a place called Avoca. We were in the middle of a bit of an Irish heat wave, like uncharacteristically hot weather, super sunny skies. So it felt like being somewhere other than Ireland.
If we were on the ocean off the coast of [Wicklow], what I loved was going out on the ocean in the boats, and then we were also in this place called Luggala, which is this private reserve that is owned by the Guinness family. So being able to be in those locations… they do so much work for you, you really just have to stand there and kind of inhabit it. It makes everything really easy.
When you’re on set does the cast maintain that Viking mindset in between scenes, or are people whipping out their cell phones and checking their Twitter feeds?
What was kind of interesting was that we were in a spot where there was no reception, and we were on the boats, so we were in a place where people didn’t bring anything like that with them. Between Travis [Fimmel] and Gustaf [Skarsgård] and Jefferson Hall, who plays Torstein, and some other guys, Tadhg Murphy who played Arne, there were so many incredibly funny cool people. This cast, we spent an inordinate amount of time together and got along really, really well.
So that was the thing I will miss the most about that season of Vikings, was just thinking about all those days being with those people and all the background people. A lot of the people in the boats were from the Dunleary Rowing Club, they were people we worked with every day from the first season to the second season. It was a big extended family between the cast and crew.
Is there any more to the backstory behind the feud between Jarl Borg and King Horik, or is it just strictly business between these two?
Conflict was just so woven into the tapestry. Men in power, power is land, and power is how many men you have at your command and there is always someone gunning for your spot. Horik had to survive. In history, his own family had taken out his immediate family in a power grab, and he survived it and exacted revenge upon his own family members.
Historically, he had a long reign from, if I’m not mistaken, somewhere in the middle of the 9th century, for like 27 years or so, maybe the 820s to 850. So he had to be pretty brutal, but there were plenty of people who would want to challenge for control. If you ever read about the “War of Roses” in 15th century English history, you back one guy, one day you’re on top, the next someone else is on top and now you’re all mortal enemies. It was a pretty tricky time to try to survive.
But we didn’t get much more into the deeper personal part of the conflict other than the audacity to take my land. It was funny because while playing it, I actually think “Jarl Borg has a bit of a fair grievance here.” He was a fantastic guy, Thorbjørn Harr. Amazing, a really great actor. The [Jarl] Borg thing is almost like World War I, like where Germany let the Austria-Hungarian Empire just kind of go after Serbia, then everybody has to fall into play. A smaller conflict brings everyone into battle in this.
I love what they do with the Jarl Borg character after the initial battle scenes, and how it affects everyone from King Horik all the way down to Rollo.
Yeah. Decisions are made that put people into really uncomfortable spots, and I’m one of the guys making those decisions and fully aware that it places people between rocks and hard places. But yeah, that was fun.
Do you view Horik as a morally grey area character or is he more black and white – he is the bad guy?
I don’t see him as a bad guy at all, especially with him trying to create some kind of order. Even the Kings of Ireland, at this time, the hardest thing to do was create any kind of sense of unified country when people were so tribalistic, especially at this time. That is even something Ragnar talks about, “Why do we always fight inwardly amongst ourselves?” What you are trying to do is create one cohesive umbrella that everyone will march underneath.
I see that as what his aim was, as well as lining his own pocket and increasing his own power and prestige. That naked ambition wasn’t something they hid, they speak of it often. The Vikings always were like “You want to become famous and you want to be known,” and that will also help with your chance to gain acceptance to Valhalla in the afterlife.
I think as far as a king, one of the reasons why Horik is really one of the only known Viking leaders is he would engage in this kind of diplomatic back-and-forth with other leaders of the known European world, the Frankish court, and he was very diplomatic. I remember [Vikings creator] Michael Hirst described him to me as “He was much more like the willow than the oak.” He could bend and he would say one thing to one group to appease them, and then pull a move to undermine it. He was a slick character politically, he was nimble and he was calculating.
Now, does that make the for best human being? I don’t know. But in that world, soft people didn’t survive very long. He was engaged in correspondence with Charlemagne and things like that… but he probably was behind raiding parties sent into places like Paris and stuff.
People were terrified of the Norsemen and then they would have to pay ransoms to get them to leave them alone and leave [their land] and send them back, and then he’d write letters to appease saying “Look, I know this happened. It wasn’t me, it was a band of these guys acting on their own behalf, and I’m going to take care of it.” But of course, nothing was happening without his okay. He was a real slickster. I don’t necessarily know if I think of it as bad or good. I just think of it as, he was someone who wanted to be powerful and he would do whatever it took to maintain that power and control.
The season premiere is so explosive, but can fans look forward to anything down the line this season that could top it?
Yeah, this season seems to be, if I had to make a broad generalization, it starts with big conflict and it continues from there. It is more action-packed straight up, [Season Two] starts with a battle, [Season One] ends kind of oddly. In a way, it ended with an anticipation of having a second season because it ends just setting up the antagonist for the next season. How Ragnar allied himself with Horik and Rollo allied himself with Jarl Borg, and that’s how Season Two opens, where there will be no diplomatic conclusion to this. It’s going to be a battle and that sets up a conflict, an unresolved conflict, that runs through all of Season Two as well as new raids to the West. It was pretty swashbuckling, I would have to say.
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Vikings returns at 10:00pm this Thursday, February 27th, exclusively on HISTORY. Check out the first part of this interview where we discuss some of the first details to come out of Fox’s new Batman series Gotham and Donal Logue’s take on playing Harvey Bullock.