Quisling lead actor reveals father’s WWII brutal torture Quisling's men
The producers of Erik Poppe’s gripping film, Quisling - The Final Days, have dropped an exclusive video. For the first time ever, lead actor Gard B Eidsvold opens up about his father’s harrowing experience as a political prisoner during World War II in Oslo, where he endured six months of brutal torture at the hands of the police - with the blessing of Minister President Quisling*.
In this must-watch video, the acclaimed actor delves into the deep trauma his father endured and reveals how it might have cast a shadow over his own life. Quisling - The Final Days is to receive its international premiere at this year’s Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF).
“How do you make a film about Quisling? How do you defend making a film about Quisling? A defense lawyer has to defend their client. As an actor, I have to try to get under his skin and to defend him with everything I’ve got. But the real purpose of the film is, of course, to try and understand what took place. How could it happen?” Gard B Eidsvold
“My father Knut** was a political opponent to the Quisling government,” explains Gard B Eidsvold who plays the role of Vidkun Quisling, the military officer and politician who personally invited Hitler’s Nazi Germany to occupy his own country, Norway, at the beginning of World War II. This highly controversial figure is central to Erik Poppe’s TIFF-selected Quisling - The Final Days. In the film, the director follows the man from the initial days of the Liberation in 1945, through his captivity and trial to the final verdict and execution.
“How do you make a film about Quisling?” asks Eidsvold. “How do you defend making a film about Quisling? A defense lawyer has to defend their client. As an actor, I have to try to get under his skin and to defend him with everything I’ve got.” But the real purpose of this film, he explains is, of course, “to try and understand what took place. How could it happen?” For Erik Poppe, the director of the film, the story here is not so much about WWII: “it’s very topical as it looks into what possibly goes on in the minds of the autocratic leaders we know today. We are living in dangerous times and that is why I had to tell this story.”
Eidsvold’s father was arrested in 1944. “For six months, he was tortured by Norwegian policemen in Oslo - with the blessing of Minister President Vidkun Quisling,” he notes. “My father never talked about it… But I know it took its toll. It left him with mental scars and a drinking problem.”
The acclaimed actor reflects on whether he carries his father’s trauma in his DNA? “Can the trauma of war be passed on to the next generation? As an actor, I’ve always been interested in notions such as reconciliation and forgiveness: the ability to forgive and to ask for forgiveness. Which can prove extremely difficult. Would my father have benefited if his tormentors had asked for forgiveness? If they had felt remorse? If Quisling had shown remorse? And what about me? Would I have been spared from my own personal darkness?”
In Quisling - The Final Days, we gain a condensed insight into his psychological and claustrophobic struggle with truth and lies; faith and doubt. Based on extensive research and unique source material, including a diary written by the priest, Peder Olsen (played in the film by Anders Danielsen Lie), in which he documents his time as Quisling's confidant and one of his two spiritual advisors in prison during the period from the arrest until his October 1945 execution.
According to Erik Poppe, the film’s director, it wasn’t at all obvious to find the actor who would portray Vidkun Quisling, “who would want to be associated with such a man. Gard has the incredible ability to embody a character. Regardless of his personal background, he really wanted to try to understand this person.”
Eidsvold, who is expected in Toronto to join Poppe to attend the TIFF premiere screening on September 8, has worked as an actor since 1988. He has participated in around 50 theatre productions and 90 films and series, in both lead and supporting roles, such as Troll, Beforeigners, In Order of Disappearance, Witch Hunt, Lilyhammer and Zero Kelvin. He is also a producer, director and screenwriter. Currently, Eidsvold is a producer and actor at Statsteatret in Oslo and the managing director and producer at Det Nye Teater in Copenhagen.
Quisling - The Final Days cast also comprises Anders Danielsen Lie (The Worst Person In The World, Bergman Island, Personal Shopper), Lisa Carlehed (The Emigrants, Until We Fall), Lisa Loven Kongsli (Force Majeure, Justice League), Arthur Hakalahti (The King’s Choice, Three Wishes For Cinderella) and Nils Jørgen Kaalstad (Norsemen, Lilyhammer and Beforeigners).
Directed by Erik Poppe (The King’s Choice, U-July 22), the screenplay is written by Siv Rajendram Eliassen and Anna Bache-Wiig, based on a story by Ravn Lanesskog, itself inspired by an idea from Stig Svendsen and Finn Gjerdrum. Director of photography is Jonas Alarik, while the original score is composed by Jonas Colstrup***.
Producers are Finn Gjerdrum and Stein B Kvae for Paradox who have produced all of Erik Poppe’s films. International sales are handled by REinvent.
WATCH TRAILER HERE
Download the EPK (English) here.
PDF 19 MB
Notes for the editor:
* Vidkun Quisling was a Norwegian fascist and Nazi collaborator. He served as Minister President of Norway from 1942 to 1945 in a Nazi puppet state. His last name has since come to mean “traitor” or “collaborator.” It was BriJsh Prime Minister Winston Churchill who actually immortalized the term “quisling”. In his 1941 speech at St. James’s Palace, Churchill referred to “a vile race of Quislings.” He described the term as “a new word which will carry the scorn of mankind down the centuries.” When Churchill addressed the US Congress a few months later, he again referred to “filthy quislings,” and the word gained popularity. The term conJnues to be applied to poliJcal figures who collaborate with outside powers, especially invading forces. However, it is also used as a general term for a traitor. Outside of Norway, the word quisling has outlasted the memory of Vidkun Quisling himself.
**Knut Eidsvold (1913-1994) helped people flee to Sweden but was arrested in July 1944 for being in the possession of illegal materials such as wriJngs. A^er spending several months in solitary confinement in Møllergata, where prisoners were o^en subject to interrogaJon and torture, he was transferred to Grini, a Nazi concentraJon camp in Bærum, Norway. It was primarily used for political prisoners. Prisoners were forced to work in manufacturing, agriculture and other manual labor, much taking place outside.
***Jonas Colstrup’s original score for Quisling – The Final Days is now available to stream/download on all major digital music services. Aroona released the soundtrack album.
Christian De Schutter
