Chilling drama Fortitude returns for a final series
Star Richard Dormer on the gripping final series of murder mystery Fortitude…
Since it began in 2015, Sky Atlantic’s thriller Fortitude has chilled fans to the bone with a series of grisly murders. Despite the insistence of Governor Odegard (The Killing’s Sofie Gråbøl) in season one that the remote Norwegian town of Fortitude was ‘the safest place on Earth’, the supposedly crime-free community has been blighted by violent deaths sparked by an infection spread by larvae that emerged from a frozen mammoth carcass.
deadly infection
And, considering the big names – including Sofie, Christopher Eccleston, Michael Gambon, Stanley Tucci and Ken Stott – who have been dispatched so far, it’s clear that no one is safe as the drama returns for its final series this week.
For Game of Thrones star Richard Dormer, 49, playing sheriff Dan Anderssen, who somehow managed to survive the infection but in the process has turned from good shepherd to big bad wolf, has been the role of a lifetime.
‘This is the best part I’ve ever played,’ beams the actor as he chats to
TV Times.
‘Dan’s a monster, but there’s a deep humanity in him. That’s what I hold onto when I’m playing him; that he could redeem himself. Although whether or not he does, I don’t want to say!’
Hallucinations
At the end of series two, it was unclear whether old, ‘good’ Dan was back, or if he was still a cannibalistic killer. And as the show resumes, it doesn’t take long to learn that all is far from well with him.
‘Dan’s now addicted to a hallucinogenic juice that means he can communicate with the people he has killed,’ teases Richard.
Meanwhile, the twisted plot thickens further as a glamorous American comes to town and widowed fisherman Michael Lennox (Dennis Quaid) hits the bottle hard.
Richard reveals that during filming in Norway, the cast and crew had to take great care outdoors.
‘Being on a Skidoo when there’s a wind chill of -50°C, you can get frostbite in 30 seconds,’ he says. ‘If you’re going for a walk, you’ve got to tell somebody, because if you slip and fall unconscious, you’re dead in 15 minutes. You have to be careful!’
Dan’s a monster, but there’s a deep humanity in him