He started out as a rock star in Sugarplum Fairy and went on to appear in musicals such as “Hair”, “American Idiot” and “& Juliet”. Now Viktor Norén is taking the next step in his acting career.
This is the first Swedish film I’m making. If you’re going to step outside your comfort zone, it takes something special to do it, and this book was a big reason for that. It’s one of the best Swedish books I’ve read in 20 years, he says.
Viktor Norén plays “The Thief”, one of the “fathers” in author Andrev Walden’s alter ego’s turbulent upbringing in Sweden in the 1970s and 1980s, depicted in “Jävla karlar”.
Very nervous
Aliette Opheim plays Mona, the mother. She says it was important to preserve the tone of the novel, in which the mother repeatedly makes disastrous choices in her relationships but remains her son’s greatest source of security.
At its heart, the book is a declaration of love.
She is not a monster. It was important to strike that balance. It is a challenge to be someone’s greatest source of security while at the same time being the source of an extremely insecure upbringing, she says.
Andrev Walden’s novel has sold more than 350,000 copies and won the August Prize. Aliette Opheim felt a great responsibility when the book was adapted for the screen.
I was very nervous throughout filming and had no idea what was going on, I felt. I probably suffered from performance anxiety. I felt that.
When Viktor Norén read the novel, he saw many parallels between Andrev in the book and his own upbringing.
There were always some unfortunate children. I had some in my class who came from quite complicated family situations, where new characters were constantly coming in.
Aliette Opheim plays opposite three child actors who play the role of Andrev in "Damn Men." One of them is Felix Östergren.
Stuck in adolescence
His character, “The Thief”, also reminds him of people he saw during his adolescence.
He is a child in an adult’s body who shoplifts. I saw that in Borlänge when I met the addicts: they seemed a bit stuck in adolescence. They did things you yourself did as a teenager. But then you moved on and became an adult. They got stuck in the teenage party.
“Damn Men” is Viktor Norén’s first Swedish film, but not actually his big-screen debut.
I played Mick Jagger in a German production called “Das wilde Leben” in 2007. It was about the German supermodel Uschi Obermaier, the only woman to have dated Keith Richards and Mick Jagger at the same time. She is an iconic woman in Germany, so I kind of have a 20-year span, he says, laughing.
“Damn Men” will be released in cinemas on November 6.
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