COLLIDER: Christopher Heyerdahl Talks HELL ON WHEELS and THE TWILIGHT SAGA: BREAKING DAWN – PART 1
by Christina Radish
November 28th, 2011
On the AMC Western drama Hell on Wheels, actor Christopher Heyerdahl plays Thor Gundersen, also known as The Swede, who is Thomas Durant’s (Colm Meaney) ruthless head of security. His tactics help him maintain a degree of control over the chaotic traveling town, but he abuses his power to extort money from its residents.
During this recent exclusive phone interview with Collider, Christopher Heyerdahl talked about how he came to be a part of Hell on Wheels, what he enjoys about playing such a complex and complicated character as The Swede, that he’s developed the character through extensive research both in books and in his own Norwegian heritage, and the challenge of shooting the Western concurrently with his SyFy series Sanctuary. He also talked about playing the ancient Volturi vampire Marcus in the Twilight Saga films, the deleted scene from The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn – Part 1 that he hopes will end up on the DVD, what audiences can look forward to with Breaking Dawn – Part 2, and what it’s been like to have the support of genre fans...
... Collider: When you’re doing a role on a show where it’s obviously a real period of time, what sort of research do you do, into the time period? Did you draw from your own heritage, as well as look at what books are available about it?
HEYERDAHL: "Yeah. There are a number of books, just on that specific time period because it was such a huge part of American history. There are a number of books that were passed around, and that the Gaytons and the rest of the creative team had been looking at, as a guide to follow and move around, as far as the way one does, in telling a story. You try not to let the facts get in the way of good story. That’s the jumping-off point, so those books were being passed around. There’s also a wonderful thing called the interweb, but I tried to stay away from Wikipedia, bless their hearts.
Certainly, for Andersonville, I tried to do as much research as I could, specifically about Norwegians in Andersonville. When I was in Norway, a number of years ago, there was a wonderful show that was being done at the local museums, about the immigration of Scandinavia, about 10 years before the story takes place, when they all started to go to Minnesota. There was a grand exodus from Denmark, Sweden and Norway. There was one gentleman who had gotten control of a whole bunch of land, now known as Minnesota, and that’s why you have so many Scandinavians there. He basically invited everyone to come there and start a new life. There was also just trying to understand the mind-set of someone who would go to a place like that. It’s already quite an adventure to leave your own country and move into a new place today, but imagine when it really was like going to outer space or down into the bottom of the sea, where there’s a new frontier that is terrifying and unexplored.
There were so many things to draw on. I went and talked to my father about times, 70 years ago, when he was growing up. I would ask for stories from his parents, which would go back another 70 years, just to get a feel for the perspective, through some kind of oral history. It was a great experience because how often do you really sit down and talk to your family, or your extended family, about history. That doesn’t happen, everyday..."
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