By now, many of you have probably seen the new Nordic Netflix offering, Billionaire Island – Nordic Watchlist caught up with one of the series creators, Anne Bjørnstad, to discuss how it all came to life (and to clear up those Succession comparisons).
In 2012, five years on from Netflix’s appearance as a streamer, the first Norwegian original Netflix show came to the platform. The creators behind it? Anne Bjørnstad and Eilif Skodvin, who would go on to create Beforeigners (criminally unavailable for anyone in the UK), and now, seven years later, the pair have returned to Netflix with Billionaire Island.
Where did the idea come from for the creator?
“I guess the inspiration for Billionaire Island has two different sources. One of those sources is that Eilif and I both grew up in the 1980s. So we both have a strong sort of nostalgic connection to the American soaps like Dynasty and Dallas. Back in those days, we had only one TV channel in Norway, and so when Dynasty was on, everyone watched Dynasty“, Anne explains, reminding me of the Friday evenings being babysat by my gran and watching Alexis Colby and Crystal duke it out every week. A genre of television which Anne notes has ‘disappeared’.
But with the stories of money and wealth in the States a similar story was brewing in Norway with the fishing industry.
When we grew up, there were always new stories about how the coast was being depopulated and how people couldn’t make a living – it was always these really sad stories. And now, suddenly, there are these billionaires popping up everywhere. So it’s this crazy thing and it has so many ethical dilemmas – it was a huge success story, economically speaking, but then there are a lot of people who feel that these companies are usurping the good.
The pair saw a story that could come out of this scenario – especially given that so many of these companies were run by families and passed on to each other over the generations. It felt like a perfect opportunity to come up with a drama series.
The Cast
Billionaire Island has a cast of relatively new faces to those who might watch a lot of Nordic series, and there is a reason behind that. Before we get in, let us just point out just how magnificent the cast is—all of whom put in a phenomenal performance, and in particular Trine Wiggen (pictured below).
“Yeah, I guess a special thing about the casting in this particular project is that it’s set in a very specific region in Norway. The island itself is fictitious but it is based on an actual island that has had like 5 to 6 billionaires who suddenly popped up on there during the last twenty years. So it is a small knit community with a lot of billionaires and it is set in a special region in Norway. One where we have very specific dialects.
“So, one thing that we sort of agreed with Netflix on from the beginning was that if we’re going to make this, we need people in Trøndelag to believe that this really is Trøndelag, and that means that everyone has to speak like the locals.”
That meant that the A-listers became harder to cast but what stemmed from that was the ability for the casting director to discover some new talent and it turned out that there were a lot of great actors from that part of Norway – in particular Trine Wiggin who plays one of the rival companies (and one of those families WITH all the money) CEO’s Julie Lange.
“We’ve been huge fans of her for a long time, but we didn’t think of her from the start, because originally we wrote it for two guys as rivals. This was just because there are not that many women in fish farming. We didn’t really know it it would be just more realistic with two guys. But then we had a hard time sort of nailing the character, we did some casting, and then this idea came: what if we tried Trine for the role? She had that quality that we wanted and, well, the rest is history“.
Trine brings this aura around her from the minute we are introduced to her character – with steel nerves and ruthless, along with her addiction to nicotine pouches. But the role almost never happened.
“Her daughter is a very environmentally conscious person and she was worried about how she would feel with her mother playing this role but it all worked out fine – she was happy that the series was raising awareness on the salmon farming industry“.
Those Succession comparison
“Like Succession with Salmon Farming” The Guardian newspaper stated in their headline when reviewing the series (and giving it a healthy four stars) – the question is though is this series to be compared with what some people have described as one of the best TV shows ever made? It is very easy to throw the comparison in there – a rich family with spoilt kids, fast cars, helicopter transfers, and skills at handling mergers to making them even richer. But was that what the creators wanted?
“I really love succession, but I think it’s quite different from our show”
“I really love Succession, but I think it’s quite different from our show. I couldn’t imagine characters like the succession characters in our series, because these people are on a small island in the middle of nowhere, where they all grew up, whereas I feel like in Succession, they you don’t even know where they are? Are they in New York? They’re they live in the bubble that’s separate from the rest of the world.
Anne couldn’t be more right – the world which the Logan Roy and his family inhabit is one so much further from that of the Lange’s and one of the main reason is because the creators have brought a more realistic approach with Billionaire Island.
“The people in the salmon industry are rich in a very Norwegian way. They live in the same house, their kids go to the same school as all the other kids. You are not supposed to stand out as it is very important to present yourself as down to earth. So it’s kind of a funny combination to be among the richest people in the world and pretend that you’re just a regular guy“.
What about a Second Season?
How difficult is it when you have to try and write a season of television that can technically wrap up in one season but also manage to leave it open enough to continue into future seasons.
“There are two types of people who write series. One is more oriented towards movies and then you want to close the story. Or you are more oriented to television and in television, you just wanted to sort of go on and on“, Anne explains citing David Chase as a good example. “Of course you want to fulfil the viewer and to have closure on some threads. But I just want things to continue and I guess it’s just a personal preference this idea to make something that could potentially sort of just go on. We have a lot of ideas that we want to go into in a possible next season“.
We have a lot of ideas that we want to go into in a possible next season
For those that have seen the series will know that is does a very neat thing of wrapping things whilst also leaving some great threads to be continued into a possible second season. Whilst we must confirm that at the time of being published nothing has been confirmed.
Billionaire Island is available now on Netflix worldwide
