Nordic Watchlist speaks to Swedish director Isabella Eklöf about her adaptation of The Death of Bunny Munro.
Some may have picked up on the increase in Nordic female directors working on English-language TV series. Josephine Bornebusch worked on Baby Reindeer and season one of Bad Sisters, Ugla Hauksdóttir worked on Alien:Earth, Susanne Bier with several series including The Perfect Couple, and Anne Sewitsky on Presumed Innocent, to name just a few.
Isabella Eklöf is not new to this, as she has previously worked on eight episodes of Industry. Her feature film works include Holiday and the yet to be released (in the UK) Kalak, with her next project being one of the first Dogme 25 films. She is an incredible talent, and one, in my opinion, who couldn’t be more perfect for the role to adapt The Death of Bunny Munro to our TV screens.
Getting hold of a dream project
When asked what brought her back to directing a TV series, her answer is simple: “Would you say no to The Death of Bunny Munro?”
She has a point – the opportunity to adapt a book written by Nick Cave that explored a dark world of grief, parenthood, and sex addiction would be hard to decline. So, saying no wasn’t an option – but how did it all come about for the director?
“I read the book way back and put it on my list of stuff that needed to be shot, and I was just amazed that nobody had done it yet. I had talked to someone at one stage who had it as a feature for a little while, but nothing came of it for some reason,” the director explains over a Zoom call on the series press day in London.
“And then Clerkenwell Films was like, “Okay,” and ran with it. I think the decision to make it a series instead of a film was really crucial to make it work. A film has never really been a good way to adapt a novel, because it’s too short. You don’t get all the complexities in and all of the journeys you need to go on. So having it be a series makes it click, and it is a separate work of art with its own justification for being.”
Clerkenwell Films certainly saw a good thing, and they definitely have an eye for that, given that they were behind the hugely successful Baby Reindeer series.
Working with the cast on The Death of Bunny Munro
The series was adapted by Pete Jackson, and everything was cleared with Nick Cave (who was responsible for them emailing Matt Smith and asking if he was interested in the series). Matt Smith’s response: “Would you say no to Nick Cave?”
Of course, the book was pretty full-on, and the actor had to have a serious think about the role, because Bunny, in the book, is quite a fucked-up character and does some pretty horrendous things.
“Having worked with so many super commercial projects and this being on Sky, he was a little bit afraid that people would censor us,” the director explains about working with Smith. “That never happened, which is a great gift, a part of why this works.”
“I think a lot of these collaborations start with the script. I think you should only ever work with a brilliant script, like this was, otherwise it’s not worth it. And that is just such a jumpstart because everyone is sucked in, and everyone wants to give it all they have.”
Were their concerns over Matt Smith’s character and the things he does in the series?
“Nobody wants to be the villain, really. Nobody wants to be actually abusive. But, you have to be, and you also have to defend it, and that’s the complexity of it. I know he wanted to go there, but he’s such a good guy in reality, so sometimes it was hard for him to go all the way, but he did, and he really wanted to. I think that’s at the core of why it works: that complexity and the width of scope.”
With the series set in the early 2000s, Eklöf and her team have truly done a magnificent job creating that look and feel of Brighton at that time. I was living there myself at that time of year, and it felt incredibly nostalgic to watch.
Working with Rafael Mathé
Providing some relief from the darkness of Bunny’s character is his son, Bunny Junior, who is played by Rafael Mathé. Mathé’s performance is extraordinary – this is his debut, and he delivers it in such an incredible and emotive way. Looking back on some of Eklöf’s work, it is noticeable she hasn’t worked with child actors before – was this new to her?
“I’d done a really dark film about a girl who was being kept in a cellar by a pedophile. Now and then, in different projects, I have kids on set. Sometimes it can be tricky because it’s hard to know how much you can say to them. I grew up in an extremely open atmosphere, so I don’t really have a natural censorship; I need to find out where they’re at,” Eklöf explains.
“Other than that, I find children, if they’re good, talented, and natural, quite easy to work with because you just need to plop them in there, and they need to react. They’ll have read the script, or at least the palatable parts of it, and they’ll understand a lot of things instinctively. You just need to help them feel safe and present and let them do their thing.”
Mathé delivers in such a scene-stealing way – to the extent that both Matt Smith and Nick Cave raved about his performance when they did a special talk about the series at the Southbank Centre in October.
Eklöf also mentions how Mathé looks a little like Sarah Greene (who plays his mother, Libby, in the series, and who also puts in a stellar performance). “It is uncanny when you’re looking at it.”
Capturing the Early 2000s
Capturing that look and aesthetic was long-time collaborator of Eklöf’s, Nadim Carlsen. Carlsen had worked with Eklöf on Holiday, Kalak, and Border (for which Eklöf had worked on the screenplay).
“I’ve worked with him (Carlson) since film school. We wanted to explore something new, and so we looked at Cassavetes and the way he uses zoom lenses and stages a scene. And there’s something about the tension that this creates, as you’re just constantly zooming in on people that really works for this.”
Isabella continues to explain the colour palette of the series – influenced by the neon ice cream signs and crumbling Victorian buildings: “We didn’t go quite as poppy and bright – that was partly because of Alex Toomey, who went in with a slightly different colour palette. It was more powdery pink and pastel, which I think is absolutely right, because it gives it a bit of a feminine edge. He (Bunny) is operating in a world of women; he’s operating in a feminine world, you know, as this con man, as a salesman.”
What is up next?
Eklöf is writing and directing Mr. Nawashi, a deeply personal BDSM love story that will be the first film under the Dogma 25 banner. The production officially began in October 2025, and the film is expected to premiere in autumn 2026.
Dogme 25 draws intentional inspiration from Dogme 95, which was active roughly from 1995 to 2005. The original movement was founded by Lars von Trier and Thomas Vinterberg, later joined by Kristian Levring and Søren Kragh-Jacobsen. Classic Dogme 95 films include Festen by Vinterberg, The Idiots by Lars von Trier, and Open Hearts by Susanne Bier.
We can’t wait!
The Death of Bunny Munro is out now on Sky and streaming service NOW
