Get familiar with the cast behind the heir to Young Royals' Scandi royal romance throne
“It’s the classic Cinderella story, right? Although I don’t think you’ve ever seen it quite like this…” says Elli Rhiannon Müller Osborne. She’s one of the stars of Norway’s hottest new Netflix film, Royalteen. Based on the hugely successful YA book series by Randi Fuglehaug and Anne Gunn Halvorsen, it’s your quintessential high-school romance: boy meets girl, girl meets boy’s family... who happen to be the King and Queen of Norway.
The film arrives hot on the heels of the hit Swedish film Young Royals, capitalising on a surge of interest in Scandinavian monarchy. “I don’t know why we are all suddenly so into them,” laughs Filip Bargee Ramberg, another of Royalteen’s stars, and the young singer-songwriter behind the movie’s central song. “I guess we grew up with tales of princes and princesses and there’s this mystery around them now – we want to know more about what they’re really like.”
The film takes this curiosity as a jumping off point, placing a decidedly Gen-Z filter on (fictional) royal life, with more emphasis on teen than royal. Müller Osborne, last seen as the lead in Ida Takes Charge, plays the deliciously snide and superior Princess Margrethe (“It was so much fun to be the bad guy,” she beams) furious that her twin brother, Crown Prince Kalle, has taken an interest in mysterious new student Lena. In many ways, she has taken on an old-trope – the evil stepmother, the wicked queen – and brought it into the Gen-Z age. Indeed, the film’s director Per Olav Sørenssen describes the film as Gossip Girl meets The Crown.
It’s a fitting description for a narrative dominated by online gossip and the pernicious nature of social media, whether you’re a royal or just a normal teenager. “It’s something that connects the two central characters,” says Ines Høysæter Asserson, who plays Lena and cements her status as one of Norway’s biggest rising stars after roles in Skam and Harajuku. “Royals have to keep their record completely clean as everything has such a high stake, but that’s what it’s like to be a teenager on social media too."
Mathias Storhøi and Elli Rhiannon Müller Osborne star in Royalteen on Netflix. Photo: Håvard Byrkjeland / Netflix
In this sense, Royalteen is primarily concerned with authenticity, on unpicking who you really are outside of the noise of the online world. “That is why I love telling stories from a young person's perspective,” Sørenssen agrees. “Especially with social media; in those high school years, all the challenges human beings can have, are condensed: Who are you? Who do you really want to be?”
Despite the sometimes weighty subject matter, the film is hugely enjoyable and was, by all accounts, as much fun to work on. The visible chemistry is no doubt helped by the fact much of the cast went to school together, including the main paramours Høysæter Asserson and Mathias Storhøi. “It was just such a funny set to be on,” grins the latter. “Full of jokesters.”
Bargee Ramberg, who plays Kalle’s best friend, recalls how, before one scene, he accidentally burst a bottle of Champagne. “It was hilarious,” Müller Osborne laughs, remembering, before Bargee Ramberg contritely points out the incident damaged the camera lights. “Oh, I suppose it was funnier to watch than clean up,” she adds.
The film drops on Netflix this week, with a cast littered with the hot young things of Norway’s cinema scene looking set to be launched into a whole new degree of international recognition. So are they ready for fame? “I’m mostly excited and trying not to think about it,” smiles Storhøi shyly, before Høysæter Asserson – who lives in New York – comments on how downplayed celebrity status is in her native Norway. Co-star Müller Osborne agrees: “We’re way too awkward in Norway to make a big deal about it!” she laughs.