Sam Corlett stars as Leif Erikson and Leo Suter stars Harald Hardrada in Netflix's Vikings: Valhalla. Taking place 100 years after the original show, the upcoming series follows the end of the Viking Age as internal religious conflict and war with England upend the Viking way of life. Vikings: Valhalla season 1 premieres on Netflix February 25 and with season 2 already filmed, another batch of episodes is already on the way.
Screen Rant sat down with Corlett and Suter to talk all things Vikings: Valhalla, including the show's epic action sequences and how they filmed those bloody confrontations.
Screen Rant: Sam, you get some pretty epic action sequences throughout the first five episodes that I saw. Did you have a favorite to film?
Sam Corlett: Certainly, the second one in episode one where someone's picking on [Leif] in regards to my father. I think that was probably the most dynamic fight. We really worked closely with the stunt coordinator, Richard Ryan, who notoriously has done Troy and Sherlock Holmes before - it was really cool to work with him. And the stunt team. It was a real trial by fire. So to see the inception of that and to finally be able to express it was a real gift.
You both are playing such prominent historical figures and so Leo, for you, I was wondering, how do you approach doing this? Do you do a lot of research? Or do you let the script guide you?
Leo Suter: There's a balance of the two. I think it's one of the joys of doing historical pieces that you can do some homework and do a few informal history lessons and really learn about a world that you otherwise wouldn't know about. So I really enjoyed finding out the history of these kings, of Canut's invasion of England, and how brutal and bloodthirsty that whole world was. But there comes a point as well where you have to leave that homework to one side and go to the scripts and see what they offer you. Jed has done an amazing job of creating really three-dimensional characters in a very authentic world. So actually, you can leave that homework and come on to set and Harald flows freely.
We get that awesome battle sequence in episode four on the [London] Bridge. Both of you are like working in both angles here. What was that like on set for you guys? How much of an undertaking was that? How much training did you guys have to do?
Leo Suter: Well, I think one of the cool things about it was how many moments that Steven Saint Leger, our director, was explaining to us, "Oh, while you're doing this, the army will be over here. And this will be happening..." Because there are so many pieces to that puzzle. Little moments become really crucial, tiny details of tying a rope or an arrow landing in a shield. It all comes together for the whole set piece to work. So it was a real culmination of a lot of people's efforts. And that's always quite cool to know how many work hours go into something. And I think the end product is pretty epic.
Sam Corlett: Yeah. And it goes to show how important both ink on a page, to blood on an ax, to a rope, to the macro shots. It takes a village you know. It's a beautiful episode as an example for it takes a village to create such an epic sequence.
Vikings: Valhalla is now streaming on Netflix.