

VIKING GAMES 2018 HOW TO
No, it wasn’t until director Steve Saint Leger came on board that we started to discuss how to shoot the battle and how we might actually do the death of this huge character. I was thrilled with the episode.ĭid the response of season five’s midseason finale battle inspire you to play with that battle format further in this episode? It’s another amazing battle sequence and the way it was cut together and the way that Alfred talks about the battle on the back of the wagon before we even know that Heahmund was killed was really spellbinding. So I knew from the start he would have to have a glorious death.

He’s not someone who follows an ordinary human path. As soon as he found out that he’d been betrayed by an old colleague and his position had been taken away, he just murdered the guy without necessarily thinking about the consequences. There’s a lot of politics in the show, there are a lot of conspiracies, and Heahmund is not a man who does that. The Vikings are doing it, as well as the Saxons. Everyone is playing politics around him, everyone is maneuvering. But I also knew right from the start that it wouldn’t necessarily be a protracted role. Of course I’d worked with him before and I knew the passion and charisma that he’d bring to the role. Jonny was perfect for that role, absolutely perfect. It is like this rocket that goes up and is brilliant and illuminates everything for a while, but then has to die out, and returns quickly into the darkness. He has an extraordinary presence and even thinking slightly of characters like Richard the Lionheart, who also could never have died in his bed, warriors of that ilk and passion are so extreme that they would have to burn themselves out on the battlefield. He’s the kind of character who is simply not interested in survival. Heahmund is such an extreme character that he had to die and he had to die heroically in battle.
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Here, Hirst breaks down the trajectory of the warrior bishop, what his death means for Christianity on the series going forward, and how Lagertha will deal with this latest blow in her life in the weeks to come.Īt what point did you realize Heahmund wasn’t destined to live long in this “Vikings” universe? The death scene was filmed in the snow and bitter cold in a rather enclosed field, and of course these scenes must be very intense and quite mechanical to shoot as we are dealing with arrows, but it does have a fluidity in its manifestation of the circumstances and consequences of his death and what it means for Lagertha.” The nature of the character and his intensity means that he is much like a Roman candle: it must shine bright, have its effect and leave.

That was rather nice for me because it reminds us that love is the most important thing.”Īdds Meyers: “Heahmund is only a footnote in history there was no precedent to have his character continue. “He went into battle almost wanting to die, cleansed…and yet…I don’t know if you caught it, but his last words are that he loves Lagertha,” says showrunner Michael Hirst. In the scenes leading up to his death on the battlefield, the bishop’s alliance with newly minted King Alfred (Ferdia Walsh-Peelo) was featured prominently, while Heahmund’s visions of hell and dying led to him renounce his love for Lagertha in a bid to cleanse his soul of sin.

That made Heahmund’s unexpected demise in battle on Wednesday’s “Hell” episode of the series seem all the more sudden.
