The trailer for Robert Eggers’ The Northman has dropped, with Björk making an eerie appearance as a seeress, plus Alexander Skarsgård playing a vengeful viking.
“Remember for whom you shed your last teardrop,” Björk whispers in the clip, adorned with a feathered headdress. The role marks her first major film appearance since 2000’s Dancer In The Dark, and the movie is also set to star her 19-year-old daughter, Ísadóra Bjarkardóttir Barney.
Scripted by Eggers and Icelandic writer Sjón – who has previously worked with Björk on musical projects including her work with the Hamrahlid Choir in 2019 – The Northman is set in 10th century Iceland and follows Amleth (Alexander Skarsgård), a Nordic prince on a mission to avenge his father’s death.
The revenge thriller, from the director of The Witch and The Lighthouse, was pitched by Alexander Skarsgård and is based on a mediaeval Scandinavian legend, which served as the inspiration for Shakespeare’s Hamlet.
The star-studded cast also includes Anya Taylor-Joy and Kate Dickie (of The Witch), plus Willem Dafoe, Nicole Kidman, and Ethan Hawke. It’s set to premiere in UK venues on April 22, 2022 via Focus Features and Universal, following long production delays due to the pandemic.
“The scale is so huge and there are so many more locations and things that I couldn’t do everything or know every prop myself,” Eggers told Collider recently. “That’s been a challenge with the new movie.”
“We’re designing all these worlds, building these villages, we’re making thousands of costumes and props, training the horses (on) the things they’ll need to do, designing the shots for the films,” he added. “But in this movie, there is rarely a scene that isn’t on a boat or doesn’t have a lot of extras.”
Watch the trailer below, and revisit Dazed’s interview with Willem Dafoe and Robert Pattinson, on masturbation and the lonely eroticism of The Lighthouse, here.