Thrilling dystopian series have a habit of scooping up much-loved British actor Russell Tovey. His character Daniel fell victim to an engulfing refugee crisis in acclaimed drama Years and Years, and he again finds himself playing a man tossed by geopolitical crises in gripping Norwegian drama, The Fortress (Festning Norge).
Set in 2037, the world is boiling, literally and metaphorically, as pandemics, war and environmental collapse rage. Norway’s populist right-wing Prime Minister Heyerdahl (Tobias Santelmann, The Last Kingdom, Beforeigners) has sealed the country behind a giant, heavily armed wall. Startling images ripped from real-world disasters make it all too easy to recognise this gated ‘paradise’, gained at any expense, as refugees from the UK and across Europe cluster in Sweden, hoping to find refuge on the ‘right’ side of the wall.
Tobias Santelmann as Norwegian Prime Minister Grief Amun Heyerdahl. Credit: Viaplay
Which brings us to Tovey’s character Charlie, who’s hoping the credentials of his biologist wife Uma (Nina Yndis, The Box) will secure safe passage for them and their newborn baby.
But is this paradise all that has been promised? Despite being energy self-sufficient, thanks to oil reserves and abundant hydro resources, half of Norway’s produce is imported. In The Fortress, outgoing health and food agency head Esther Vinter (Selome Emnetu, The Trip) has had to figure out new ways to feed the population, becoming an unlikely ally of Charlie’s when an outbreak of disease in farmed salmon escalates rapidly, threatening the human population.
Esther (Selome Emnetu). Credit: Lukas Salna Maipo / Viaplay
All the while, the government and the army are jostling for more power in a spookily militarised world overseen by machine gun-armed drones in this show that will keep you on the edge of your seat.
Tovey was agog when the Ukrainian war predicted in Years and Years erupted for real while they were filming a fictional refugee camp sequence in Lithuania for The Fortress.
“Maybe I am the witch in this cauldron,” Tovey wonders aloud as I point out he appears to be willing imagined disasters into reality. “You always want to play stuff that’s going to make people consider what’s happening to the planet or to society. And if it’s closer to reality, then it’s definitely scarier.”
Tovey, who recently popped up as reliable boyfriend Guy in , was taken aback by the shockwave that swept out from a particularly startling episode of Years and Years, when his character Daniel suffered a shocking fate while trying to rescue his endangered Ukrainian boyfriend Viktor (Maxim Baldry).
“You would never consider seeing a white western man dead on the beach because of a refugee crisis, and when that episode hit, it was crazy, the conversations that were happening,” he recalls. “When people are being othered, you have to humanise them. To recognise yourself in the realities of what’s happening, because it’s to go, ‘Oh, I’m upset by it. It’s in my thoughts, but it’s over there.’”
The events of 'The Fortress' echo real-life fears that swirled around the COVID pandemic. Credit: Viaplay
The Fortress may seem all too real after the events of the COVID pandemic, but series co-directors Cecilie A Mosli and Mikkel Brænne Sandemose note that the writers – Linn-Jeanethe Kyed and John Kåre Raake – conceived of the show before COVID hit.
“The original idea came from the refugee situation in Europe, with countries blocking off migrants and trying to change the pattern,” Sandemose says. “And then COVID happened before we started shooting.”
Russian President Putin’s assault on Ukraine broke out mid-shoot. “We were so close to the border and some of our actors went to help out in refugee camps in Poland,” Mosli reveals. “Set dressers went to drive an ambulance in Ukraine to help their dear friends.”
It was surreal, Tovey says, recalling a night shoot. “There were loads of guns going off, because we were two kilometres from the Belarus border and they were doing military training,” he says.
The dire reality placed extra emphasis on getting The Fortress right. “You have to be incredibly sensitive,” Tovey says. “You’re having an existential crisis, like an out-of-body experience, but then you bring all that into the work. It brought a real focus amongst the cast and crew, and real respect, actually.”
Russell Tovey in 'The Fortress'. Credit: Lukas Salna Maipo / Viaplay
When the production moved to Norway and the idyllic city of Bergen on the southwestern coast, the real-world mirror felt even stranger, Sandemose suggests. “Suddenly, it felt a little bit like in the show, that you came to this place that doesn’t really pay attention to the rest of the world,” he says. “A happy-go-lucky place where there’s 100 per cent safety, the weather was good, and it was a bit of a weird change.”
The serenity strangely amplified the drama of the series, including dramatic on-water sequences shot for real rather than on a green screen.
“We start out with the Norwegians being in this mindset of ‘We have our little perfect world here, so we’ll lock ourselves in,’ and it felt kind of awkward and fascinating to me,” Sandemose says. “Norway’s always on top of the happiness chart, we have money and the oil and everything and can very easily think about ourselves as sort of superior European. It’s a little bit of an ugly situation, and we were trying to pinpoint a little bit, to the Norwegian audience, how we can come across and how easily the situation can turn. Why we need to open our eyes to the rest of Europe and the world, basically.”
Mosli agrees that the story felt current and vital, with real-world headlines emboldening her determination to amplify overlooked perspectives. “That’s what scares me the most,” she says. “That if we don’t stay aware of democracy, or what the scientists are trying to say about the climate, or pandemics, it’s going to get much worse. We need to take away all the nonsense, ignore all the people making stuff up and listen to the experts.”
As jaw-dropping as some of The Fortress’ breathtaking action sequences are, Tovey’s glad he wasn’t involved in a dramatic boat chase around the archipelago. “I remember saying to Mikkel, as he was heading out at six in the morning on a freezing cold day, that I was so glad it was him and Nina and not me,” he laughs. “I just went down to the hotel gym instead.”
The Fortress is streaming now at SBS On Demand.
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The Fortress
