Where Was ‘The Northman’ Filmed?

In early 2020, The Northman creation designer Craig Lathrop was prepared to strike the ground functioning in Iceland to film much of director Robert Egger’s Viking epic. He had expended around a 7 days scouting the island nation, producing stops at the Fjallsárlón glacier lake, Laundmannalaurgar’s colourful geothermal pools, lush Þakgil, and Mount Hekla, one particular of the Iceland’s most lively volcanoes. But then COVID hit, and transporting the whole cast and crew (which incorporates Nicole Kidman, Alexander Skarsgård, and Björk) to Iceland amid a pandemic was no longer an alternative. A masterful pivot ensued, expanding The Northman’s filming spots throughout Ireland and Northern Eire to bring Iceland to existence, some 900 miles absent.

We sat down Lathrop to get insight into how The Northman faked Iceland’s unique and otherwordly landscapes, what it was like to make entire Viking compounds from scratch, and exactly where vacationers can see the movie’s filming destinations for them selves.

What was the investigation approach like for this movie? What places were you wanting at to make this Icelandic vibe?

There ended up 3 diverse vibes that we’re making an attempt to do: Hrafnsey, which is a fictitious island in the North Atlantic Iceland and then the Land of the Rus, which would be type of Kievan Rus’—what’s now Ukraine. Rob sent me the script truly pretty early, so I had a couple of months to dig in and do a great deal of research and familiarize myself with the period of time and the locales. We went on a scouting expedition to Iceland for a week and a half and that was magnificent. [Iceland] just blows your head away. So frequently when I’m scouting, I get to see things that people do not get to see when they are on family vacation. And this time it was more that I received to see matters that I could by no means even think about. We spent a working day and a 50 percent or two days in the helicopter traveling close to Southern Iceland, and the landscape there was certainly thoughts-blowing. And I think it is really seriously why Robert chose to do the script.

One particular of the scenes that instantly transported me to Iceland was when Amelth (Alexander Skarsgård) and Olga (Anya Taylor-Joy) land on the black sand beach front. Where did you film that and what was that practical experience like?

It can be a lengthy, funny tale. COVID truly messed us up in conditions of our Icelandic photographs. We had wanted to go to Vestrahorn but what we finished up performing for that scene, mainly because we could not go to Iceland to do what experienced experienced in the beginning prepared, is taking pictures it at 5 Fingers Strand in County Donegal, which is unquestionably beautiful on its own. But most of it we erased as we turned about out of the drinking water, and changed it with the black sand seashores that we were being capable to photograph and map out digitally, so that we could get that seaside scene that we wished. It was truly a disgrace but I considered that they did a superb task. I think it looks beautiful—and I really don’t know that any one notices. But simply because of the pandemic, we couldn’t get back again there. We did a good deal of scouting and I will say that I sense totally blessed not only for myself—because honestly, it is the biggest holiday ever—but when we came to Northern Ireland and we recognized that we had to pretend it [more than we had planned], I had a real excellent sense of what Iceland was.