A film involving a werewolf isn't the easiest one to start with…
Well, I didn’t want to make a werewolf movie, I hate werewolf movies! I wanted to tell the story of a young girl that grows throughout the film. A coming-of-age-story that involves a realistic approach in its storytelling, and where we plant this "gun", which in this case is the werewolf. It’s the story of a girl who finds the beast inside herself and has to choose whether she wants to reject it or to embrace it. Our goal was to clear out the pre-existing dogmas that spectators have on werewolves: no full moon, no overgrown eyebrows, no howling against the moon or whatsoever.
What attracted you in Lars Mikkelsen's way of playing?
Lars is one the finest actor Denmark can offer. He’s so f… good! His timing, his involvement into his character and his understanding of its psychology… And I like how intriguing his gaze is. There’s a truly cinematic depth in his look, which is very appealing: it’s like there is a story hidden in there, somewhere behind his eyes.
But Sonia Suhl, who plays Marie, his mysterious daughter, is a non-professional…
We have been casting at least 400 amateur girls from the region where we wanted to shoot the film, Jutland. I wanted a girl from that part of the world and I wanted to be sure that she would be in her right element. Sonia was born and raised an hour and half away from our location, her dad is a fisherman, and she already worked in a fishing factory before...So of course I fell in love with that! She was special, fragile, beautiful, but with a darker side. She also seems to hide a secret! So we coached her but carefully, in order not to destroy her “film innocence”, so to speak.
