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Skam podcast episode 7 - english translation

Henrik Holm is back again! And Julie talks O Helga Natt. Listen on NRK Radio and read along here:

Torkil Risan (host): In this episode we’ll take on the last three episodes of Skam season 3, Even and Isak’s season.

(Skip to 02:22)

TR: The scene at Sagene church with Nils Bech singing, Isak running out of the church to find Even, is just not any scene to Julie Andem.

JA: All of season 3 is built around the O Helga Natt scene. I remember working on season 1 and I heard O Helga Natt as I was trying to find music for a scene and I saw Isak running through the streets for one reason or another.

TR: Was it Nils Bech’s version you heard?

JA: No, we ordered O Helga Natt from Nils Bech, so that was another O Helga Natt and as I recall it I got those images in my head of Isak running through the streets. Not why he ran. That’s the best example of music because it became the master scene that all of season 3 builds up to.

(skip to 08:20)

(Sound bite from the show, Even and Isak at the hotel)

TR: What’s it like listening to this now?

HH: It’s a bit uncomfortable. As the scene should be. You notice that Isak is losing his understanding of Even. Who is he really in a hotel room with? But it’s also so positive, so you don’t really know what to think.

TR: During the night Isak wakes up to Even running out naked to Grønland to buy food at McDonald’s. Isak trying to follow but when he gets to the street he can’t find him. He doesn’t understand what’s happening.

(skip to 11:00)

TR: For Henrik Holm, this was a dimension of his character that meant more work.

HH: I had to do loads of research to understand what living with bipolar disorder is like. And because of that I had to dig deep into my range of feelings, both highs and lows. The most important part for me was that the character was believable, that you were part of the journey. Because if I had delivered the lines too clearly, they might not have hit home. So it was a very fine line to thread, that was difficult for me to understand because I don’t have any previous experiences of that. So you had to understand that those who struggle with bipolar disorder have a bigger range of emotions and have the ability to go both lower and higher. So I had to push those limits as much as possible. But I remember that I didn’t have the tools to get out of it.

TR: And what does that say?

HH: That’s the problematic thing in the beggining of an acting career, when you have the tools to get into a feeling. Acting is largely about tricking yourself. And here I had to trick myself that I was depressed, the tempo was down here. So I put a lot of time to get into it. But to get out of it was the challenge, because I didn’t have those tools.

TR: Did you get scared that you were getting depressed for reals?

HH: yeah, yeah.

TR: That was your experience?

HH: To a high degree. The filming was a rollercoaster. Because we had such little time, so you had to throw yourself from one thing to the other.

TR: It’s understandable this was a tough role for a young actor. Skam’s producer, now Head of Drama at NRK, Marianne Furuvold, says that this was something they were aware of.

MF: It was something we focused on a lot during production. Everyone in the cast was offered help from a therapist. And we worked closely with the actors and their families, we were always available to them. And they also got help from the communications and PR department at NRK. Because we wanted to take care of them in such a demanding and special situation that we were all thrown into.

TR: It might have been tough to play Even. But to Julie Andem it was important that Isak got someone to challenge him in his love story.

JA: When I was creating a love interest to Isak, I thought what is it- Isak is a character that’s too cool for school. He’s cooler than everyone. What will shake him? It has to be a character he doesn’t understand, that moves in many directions, preferably a bit irrational, that you can’t quite catch. And with that in mind I was like what characters are like that? Is it drug issues? Or what issues make a character behave irrational? I did research and ended up with mental illness. And it wasn’t because it was a gay story, it was because the Isak character, to lose his footing, needed someone irrational to challenge him to fall in love.

(skip to 21:55)

TR: This is the scene (Isak meeting Even after running from church) that Julie has built the season around. And she of course knew from the start that Even would survive.

JA: I remember refusing to answer that. There were lots of questions about it but I didn’t have to answer to keep it open. Romeo and Juliet is an arch love story and when I set it up, with Isak watching Romeo and Juliet and the longing, the feeling that that he can never have that kind of love because he’s different. And I wanted to see if it was possible to make the audience envious of Isak and Even’s love story, like he was of Romeo and Juliet. Can you make a gay love story strong enough that the audience wants to be 16 and gay. Both because of Romeo and Juliet’s set up but also there’s always that fear that it can’t happen and that it will end and that makes the power of the love story stronger. And you’re making an irrational character with a mental illness and you see that here’s a match, it makes the picture whole. You have an important role as a story teller to not just give people hope, you must find a way to make the hope stay. But telling the truth is also important. And sometimes that balance is harder than other times. Maybe there isn’t a lot of hope in the truth. But the most important part with Isak and Even was to show that epic love doesn’t belong to man and woman. So there has to be an epic love story there and it maybe could have ended with death, but I don’t think the hope.. it wouldn’t have been great.

TR: But with all the references to death, especially the references to Romeo and Juliet, the audience got worried. Especially after Even disappear naked in the night. It even made the crew suffer.

Mari Magnus: When the engagement is that big, as it was in all seasons but particularly season 3, there’s serious topics in all the season, but especially in that season, there are a lot of feelings in the comment section. And it’s very challenging for the audience to tolarate the time it takes for Isak to lock himself in his room until he contacts Even. And we might be wondering “Is Even even alive?”. It wasn’t.. but that’s how the audience was reading it. And people write “I can’t sleep until I know Even’s well” and I know it will take 48h until you get confirmation. I found it difficult to deal with those things that at the time felt like life or death. And we couldn’t ruin it. But you get affected and you want to just say “it’ll be alright”. But you can’t. And the audience doesn’t want that really either, they want the experience. But at one point the comment section got so intense that Julie put a small hint on her personal instagram account. A picture of Isak and Even in Even’s room where he has a small paper clipping that says Alt er love. And the audience picked up on that and Alt er love became a thing. And that was like a “it’ll be alright” thing.

(skip to 30:22)

TR: When the season ends, something begins for Henrik Holm. Skam has gotten world famous with this season and that has affected his life ever since.

HH: The response was huge, largely because there haven't been roles like that on tv. It’s been ten years of a massive response I never imagined when we were filming, because I didn’t know the width of it. It became a responsibility I wasn’t entirely prepared for. I didn’t know there were that many people that felt so alone in their illness. And to them became a light in the dark, or Even was a light in the dark and to them I was Even. I’ve met a lot of people on this journey afterwards that have shared their stories with me and have gotten to experience being part in creating a character that has meant a lot to people. And seeing what it can mean to people has completely changed my view on acting and creating characters. That the role would be so important to people I didn’t understand when I began, but that’s what I’ve spent most time on afterwards, to talk to people who've been affected by this and see how important it has been for them. And in a way I can never understand that, but to be that person in someone’s life has been big as an actor.

TR: You went to an open casting, got a role and suddenly a few months later you have what you could call a responsibility. As you describe it you’ve become a person people tie to something that means a lot to them. And you haven’t asked for that. That wasn’t in the contract you signed.

HH: Absolutely not.

TR: You could imagine it has some negative sides to it as well?

HH: Oh yes

TR: Let’s hear

HH: It’s also a huge responsibility to carry, because these people usually don't have anyone else to turn to. And I noticed when some of us went to conventions abroad and met fans, we got fans all over the world, that really related to these characters and got tons of letters and messages. And some of them were so dark it broke my heart what a person can possibly have to go through.

TR: They write about their own experiences to you?

HH: Yes. In their world I was the only person they could open up to, because my character understood what it was like for them. I don’t want to mention the kind of terrible things I’ve had to read during these ten years, but it has been heartbreaking to see how lonely that existence can be, to put it succinctly. Because a lot of people out there don't have anyone to talk about feelings with. And when you get a character on tv that understands you, that might be the only light in the tunnel.

TR: At this point you’ve yet to turn 20.

HH: Mmm, yeah. But that’s the paradox of acting. The better you act the more they believe you really are your character. People have truly believed we were Isak and Even for a long time. And they can’t understand that I’m an actor that has stepped into character. They just want to believe in the universe so badly that that’s what they project onto me. And that’s the biggest downside with becoming famous as an actor. It was a insight I wasn’t really prepared for and a responsibility I took because I didn’t have the heart to turn my back on it. And we didn’t really have the opportunity to do that because we- if we made this show in Hollywood and it because a big success and we made lots of money of it, we would have had the possibility to lock ourselves inisde big houses and not really have any relationship with the response you get, which was extreme at that point. But we all worked on a youth salary at NRK, we didn’t make a lot of money of this so we had to work on the side. I worked at Kaffebrenneriet and we even filmed some scenes at Kaffebrenneriet, which made it “Skam Kaffebrenneriet”. So it didn’t even take two days until it was full of fans with their phones, wanting autographs and wanting a piece or another of the cake. I just had to deal with that reality and it was a lot of conflict inside of me on how I was gonna deal with the attention. Because people think actors love that attention, that we’re very extroverted and do it with a smile but it was a lot harder than that for me. I had to quit Kaffebrenneriet because of it, I had to quit the restaur- I quit so many jobs because it’s been too many hats to wear at once. But over time I’ve also learnt to appreciate it, because people greet me with love. Even if they’ve put me in a box and want me to be Even, they have a lot of love for Even and Even has meant a lot to them. Most of the ones who find me these days are Chinese. They travel from all over Europe and China, it’s often people studying in Europe that come to Norway to find me at work. I work in service now too. You would think it has calmed down after ten years, but it hasn’t. There’s so many Skam remakes in different languages.

TR: What’s it like if you check “I wonder what Even looks like in Croatian Sram”?

HH: *laughs*

TR: I imagine you do sneak a look?

HH: 100%. And it’s been so strange to see a character you’ve been part in creating, being recreated in other languages. This is the Italian Even, this is the French Even. It flatters me in many ways. I see the similarities in the characters, but at the same time the different versions have made creative choices that make them their own characters. It’s been a strange journey. We’ve been to conventions where at least up to five Even’s been gathered. It’s strange, but fun.

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