FORTITUDE comes to Blu-ray™ and DVD from 1^st June 2015

INTERVIEW WITH RICHARD DORMER

Hailing from Lisburn, Northern Ireland, Richard Dormer has performed in productions of Much Ado About Nothing, Private Lives and Waiting for Godot. He has also written a number of plays. In 2012, he played the lead role in the film Good Vibrations, a biopic of punk rocker Terri Hooley. Dormer is best known for his TV work, starring in Hunted, Hidden and fantasy epic Game of Thrones as Lord Beric Dondarrion. In Fortitude, he plays Sheriff Dan Anderssen.

Can you describe your character and how he fits into the story? Dan Anderssen is the sheriff of Fortitude, but at the beginning of the series people don’t know how good a sheriff he is because there is no crime in the town. He’s a dependable and strong guy, who doesn’t say a great deal, then when things start to kick off he has to rise to the challenge and call on every skill he has as a policeman to cope with things.

How would you sum up the series? Ultimately, I think it’s a love story. It’s a crime drama that kind of mutates into something else, something darker and scarier. It’s very unpredictable.

What was it that appealed to you about the series? I loved it, I’d never seen that kind of beautiful Arctic world filled with glaciers, white ice, polar bears and whales. And I loved the character of Dan, there’s a real soul to the guy. I really like his journey, he’s quite surprising as you start to get to know him. He’s a bit like a shepherd, very protective of his flock and of the town of Fortitude.

It looks like Dan might be hiding a few secrets. Is there a dark side to him? Oh yes, he’s incredibly dark. Ultimately, Dan is a good man who does bad things, but he does them for the right reasons. It’s up for debate whether he’s right or not morally, but I think he’s right. He has a dark past, but he has every reason to behave the way he does.

You’ve alluded to a love story as well. What can you tell us about that? I don’t want to give too much away, but Dan has an unrequited love which drives him to behave the way he does. Which I think is all the more heartbreaking.

Did you do any research to prepare for the role? I read a lot about Arctic research centres and how people survive in that kind of cold. My main research came every day before I went on set when I did a little tour of the town we were filming in, like a cop on the beat. The locals would give me cheery waves like I was the town copper and I’d trudge through the snow in my Arctic gear. I really felt like I belonged to the place.

How did you deal with the cold in Iceland? We were wearing this Canada Goose gear, which was just incredible, so it was probably the warmest shoot I’ve ever done. I had a woolly police cap, which kept my head and ears warm. It really was lovely.

How did you get to grips with the skidoos and snow-based activities? I had a few scenes on a skidoo and there was an incident that could have been serious, but overall I really enjoyed it. Iceland is a lovely place – I’m in love with it and I can’t wait to go back. It’s probably the most beautiful place I’ve ever been.

The beauty of the location is really captured in the series, and it certainly starts with an arresting scene, doesn’t it? It’s a very brutal opening and it will grab people’s attention. But I can’t say too much or I’ll give it all away.

Your character and Stanley Tucci’s clash. How did you find working with him and how does that relationship develop over the series? Working with Stanley was brilliant. At first, the characters are very different and as actors I think we’re very different as well. Stanley is very fluid and very easy, so relaxed and charming, whereas my character is very still and intense and contained. Dan and Morton are like chalk and cheese, but I think they want to be a little like each other. Over the series, they develop a kind of grudging respect for each other, and towards the end I think they actually do like each other, but they have to do their job.

Did you enjoy the shoot? What was the atmosphere like on set? It was the most fun I think any of us have had on a set. We were one big family. We had this big stellar cast but everybody was just so lovely and laid-back, it was one of the nicest shoots ever.

Fortitude has such a beautiful filmic quality and, of course, you’ve been involved with Game of Thrones, which is also on a grand scale. Do you think TV is now rivalling film or could it even be the new film? I think it’s overtaken film because the beauty of a TV series is that you can watch a character develop over 12 hours rather than just two. And with TV, you get something to look forward to as it’s spread out over a number of weeks. A film is just bang and it’s done. TV is attracting such great cinematographers and film actors these days and that’s thanks to shows like The Sopranos and Breaking Bad, which really showcased how fantastic TV can be and what’s possible. Box sets are the new kind of movie craze.

So why should Sky Atlantic viewers tune in to Fortitude? They will see something they’ve never seen before. They’ll be uplifted, they’ll laugh and maybe even shed a tear at the end. There’s a brilliant ensemble cast, great scripting, a love story, it looks out of this world and it is absolutely terrifying. It gave me nightmares, and that’s saying something.

You had nightmares while you were filming? I’d never had a nightmare in my life and I had three during filming. There’s some pretty scary stuff and it wormed its way into my subconscious so at night-time it was really affecting me. Although on set at the time of filming, I was just laughing about all these things.

FORTITUDE: THE COMPLETE FIRST SERIES, the incredible brand new dark drama series, released on Blu-ray™ and DVD on 1^st June 2015