In order to create a long-running series, “there has to be meat on the bone,” “Vikings” creator Michael Hirst said Sundance at Monte-Carlo Television Festival.
“It has to be a whole world, rich enough to satisfy the requirements of your imagination, as Henry James used to say. The subject needs to be about real things, things that matter, and when working with historical material, you have to be able to connect the past with the present in meaningful ways.”
You also have to love your characters, whether they are good or bad.
“In my latest show [‘Bloodaxe’] we have one character, Egil, who was a pathological killer but also the most famous poet that Iceland has ever produced. I love him to pieces,” he noted.
“It’s about doing a lot of reading and thinking, and letting everything tumble around in your head. With ‘Vikings,’ there weren’t many Viking stories out here – just one movie with Tony Curtis in a little skirt shouting out ‘Odin!’ occasionally. When I started following Ragnar [played by Travis Fimmel], I discovered that he attacked Paris, for God’s sake. He was my man!”
