It's convincingly set in a small Alaskan town, but HBO's highly-anticipated fourth season of HBO's True Detective was actually filmed over six gruelling and chilly months in Iceland. We met up with the series' star and Hollywood legend Jodie Foster to chat about her love of the land of fire and ice – and her favourite Scandinavian cinema hero
Sundance Film Festival is celebrating its 40th anniversary this year. Vogue Scandinavia travelled to Utah to highlight Nordic cinema in a series of interviews.
Jodie Foster is stealing the spotlight on the red carpet at the Sundance Film Festival in Park City, Utah. The actor is dressed in a black two-piece suit, a Gucci purse stylishly slung across it. Foster is in Sundance as an executive producer on the short film Alok, which is directed by her wife Alex Hedison and offers an intimate portrait of author, poet, comedian and public speaker Alok Vaid-Menon.
Foster has also made a welcome return to our screens in her lauded acting capacity, starring as police chief Elizabeth Danvers in the HBO hit series True Detective. The series is set in the small fictional town of Ennis in Alaska, but the filming took place over six “freezing” months in Iceland. “I just love Iceland!”, Foster says. “I love Reykjavik and the whole country, really. I was there for over six months and I had so much fun. The food is great and we saw a lot of live music during our time filming there”, she says.
Photo: Tony Sjöman
Foster's greatest insight into Icelandic daily life was through the experience of being invited into locals' homes. “I noticed that Icelanders like to sing and play music, there was always music playing in their homes. Getting to know Iceland and its people was really an extraordinary experience,” she says.
Foster is no stranger to Sundance Film Festival. She’s been attending for decades and now, as the festival is celebrating its 40th anniversary, she wanted to be here to celebrate the festival’s history. “This is the most important place for independent film, it really brought independent film to the forefront here in the United States,” she says. “I’ve had a lot experience with this festival, I was on the jury in the '80s and I’ve had three films here as a producer. But, she says, not everything is as it used to be. “No, everything is changing, the industry is changing, and I think weirdly, that independent film now is more important than ever because the mainstream filmmakers and distributors have gone is such a different direction”, she says – before steering the conversation back to Scandinavia.
“There are so many movies from the Scandinavian countries that I really love, from Sweden and Denmark. I think this is a really wonderful moment for Scandinavian film, especially for the horror and thriller genres”, she says.
And when it comes to Scandinavian cinema, Foster has one clear favourite. “Bergman!”, she says! “As a filmmaker, Bergman was a huge hero for me because I make films about relationships and about family. And I’m also an actor, and Bergman really was the greatest influence for us actors!”