The striking Viking: Frida Gustavsson on her journey from catwalk to silver screen

Frida Gustavsson is talking to me from the apartment in Dublin, Ireland, which she currently calls home. She is halfway through shooting in the fields of County Wicklow – a picturesque slice of Irish countryside where the 2007 romcom PS I Love You was shot. But Gustavsson is not filming any romcom here. She is halfway through shooting the second season of Vikings Valhalla, the spin-off from the Netflix hit Vikings.

The 28-year-old Swedish actress plays Freydis Eriksdotter – one of the three lead roles – but although she’s halfway through filming the show’s second season, Covid restrictions have meant that the first season has yet to air on Netflix. “We’ve been working on this show for a year and a half now. And it's like we have this joke that it's just like it's just like free theatre school for all of us because it feels like it’s never coming out. We’re just running around here being Vikings all day long.”

Gustavsson explains that the show has plenty of “epic fights”, and that she’s been working with a combat trainer to ensure she can manage her own stunts and last a long day covered in chainmail wielding a sword. “I pity the fool who jumps me on the stage now,” she laughs. “We're fighting with swords, axes, shields, spears and with our bare knuckles. It’s pretty full-on, but I love the physical aspect of acting and the chance to really transform your body and use it as a tool.”

Gustavsson added six kilograms of pure muscle and widened her shoulders in preparation for the role. “As a woman, you don’t usually train to bulk up in that sense. But to just really try to gain physical muscle mass is something that’s been really new to me. And it’s super empowering to just wake up and really know that you can actually fight with a real sword; that you know the choreography and you can trust your body,” she says. “On top of that, we have armour, which is not light. It’s real leather. It’s real chainmail. And we're out there, fighting up to our knees in mud. So it is really physically demanding.”

Standing a towering six feet tall, the blonde-haired Swede could well be accused of being typecast as a Nordic slayer. But this striking Viking has had a long career as a global fashion model. Going from the catwalk to the silver screen is a well trodden path but one that Gustavsson was nonetheless anxious about. “I was really shy to admit to people that I wanted to do it,” she says. “I thought coming from a modelling background would be seen as something very shallow, and that I’d end up in a very specific type of acting where you’re just kind of like the hot girlfriend in a bikini.”

In 2015, she made a conscious decision to quit the modeling industry and returned to Sweden to apply for drama school. She was soon asked to read for a part in a Swedish film and since then, she says, things have snowballed.

Her latest role is in Tigers, the true story of teenage football sensation Martin Bengtsson, who was bought by Italian giants Inter Milan at 17. Bengtsson suffered serious mental health problems after the move, and Gustavsson plays his girlfriend Vibeka, who worked away from home in the similarly cut-throat modelling industry.

For Gustavsson, the themes in the film feel as relevant as ever, citing the likes of tennis player Naomi Osaka and gymnast Simone Biles, who pulled out of events at the Olympics this year for mental health reasons. “Going to the psychologist used to be seen as a sign of weakness, but now it’s seen as a kind of healthcare, but that hasn’t seeped through to all levels of society yet. It’s still something that could be poked fun at, especially in macho environments. If you also look at how few openly gay players there are in the football world, I mean, statistically it’s impossible, but it’s so hard for many people to come out because they fear the repercussions. I think it's a really important film and I hope that a lot of young people get to see it.”

We talk about how common it is that many people’s rapid rise to fame ends in some kind of breakdown. “Oh, absolutely,” she says. “I can really relate to that with my previous career, achieving such a huge level of success so fast and you’re so young. All of a sudden I’m like 19, 20, and it’s like, now what? I started working when I was 12, and by 15 I was already working with Marc Jacobs and Calvin Klein in New York. I was so shy for so many years, and I’ve always felt like an imposter; that one day people are going to realise that I'm not good enough to be here.”

When Gustavsson started modelling, she was entering an industry still sadly known for older men taking advantage of younger women. How does a 12-year-old model know how to say no? “I think you don’t know how. And I think in many ways I have been put in situations that I don’t think a child should be in. It’s kind of my fault because I’ve always thought I can do it all myself. It’s a very cynical industry that knows that somebody’s career might only last a season, in which big international conglomerates make money from children.

“While you’re in the industry, you’re so scared of speaking out because you don't want to get listed as troublesome or difficult, so you just kind of keep your head down and go like, Okay, well, I'll just kind of justify certain things for myself. But looking back now, being 28, there have been a lot of situations that haven’t been fair, or have been problematic. When I was 15, I was doing shoots in lingerie and being asked to pose in a sexual way. And it was just like, Okay, well, I’m going to sit on top of this motorcycle in a bikini. Many people that age haven’t even had sex.”

Gustavsson also encountered frequent issues around her weight. “I hadn't really had puberty before I started working and I went from really skinny to feeling like I’d gained so much weight. People would just always comment on your body. They’d come up and pinch you and be like, ‘Oh, you had a good Christmas holiday.’”

While she admits she was “way more protected than most girls who were my age”, she says that as a model she always felt like just a reflection of someone else’s ideal. In her ass-kicking new profession, though, she feels more empowered professionally as well as physically. “You are seen as a co-creator, you are seen as somebody who has ideas and gets to work together with everyone in the team,” she says. Also: someone you don’t ever pick a fight with.