Premieres on Skyshowtime after the move: “It was a golden age with Viaplay – sad that it didn’t last”
Published 2024-03-22 11.47
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It has taken just over six years. And a producing streaming service, Viaplay, whose finances collapsed.
But now the psychological thriller series “Veronika” with Alexandra Rapaport, 52, premieres on Friday – on another streaming service, SkyShowtime.
– Yes, it’s a bit fluttering in my stomach. I hope that people want to stay in the mood and the world we are building, because once the crime mystery starts, we’re going crazy, she says.
– “Arslar på” is an expression I’ve never heard, I say when we meet. Alexandra Rapaport counters surprised:
– You haven’t? Yes, it might be a little vulgar. But that’s what we do. You have to be a little patient with the beginning of the series. It’s a mood builder.
Alexandra and I meet when SkyShowtime has a press day for the TV series at Hotel Diplomat in Stockholm. Interviews are carried out on an assembly line. It’s clear that this is a series close to her heart. It has been produced by Bigster, the company Alexandra works with Birgitta Wannström and Calle Jansson.
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full screen Alexandra Rapaport. Photo: Magnus Wennman
“Veronika” started at SVT
She tells how everything about the psychological thriller “Veronika” began.
– It was about six and a half years ago. The authors (Katja Juras, Anna Ströman Lindblom) came to Bigster with three different projects. I fell in love with Veronika. They started writing. First we went to SVT Drama, who gave us development money. They had some idea that it would be finished episodes, we both thought it was bad. Then we went on to Viaplay, then we had more material, they were hooked.
What did you light?
– There was a basic idea around Veronika. Her condition, her pill abuse, a killer. It was a smart one crime with another usp (meaning Unique Selling Point). A usp with this bit of paranormal, with a psychologically interesting female lead, it’s a classic who-done-itbut also the question of whether Veronika is losing it, integrated into the crime mystery.
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full screen Alexandra Rapaport in “Veronika”. Photo: Skyshowtime
Policeman with troubled privacy
“Veronika” has eight episodes. They are released two at a time, on Fridays. Veronika Gren is thus a police officer with a slightly troubled private life. Two children (Sarah Rhodin, Eddie Eriksson Dominguez) which has its problems. A husband (Tobias Santelmann, known from the Norwegian hit series “Exit”) who works as a teacher and who thinks that the wife is a little unnecessarily absent from family life. Her closest police colleague is played by Arvin Kananian, which has recently been seen in a lot; “Triangle of sadness”, “The Adversary”, “One day all this will be yours” and the TV series “Kalifat” and “Hålla samman”. And then there is a murder mystery…
Everything takes place in a working place.
– It is a fictitious society. One can imagine an old mill society that has been slowly depopulated and emptied of both hope for the future and people.
– We have recorded in Dannemora, Gimo, Gysinge and Stockholm, among others.
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full screen Alexandra Rapaport. Photo: Magnus Wennman
pullquoteShe has her addiction, her history with mental illness
But they have one very big police station..?
– Yes, they have (laughter), but it is important for our history.
So who is Veronika, for you?
– For me, she is a very sensitive person who carries a lot of shame. She has her addiction, her history with mental illness, finds it difficult to navigate her life, and to top it all off, she then runs over a corpse. In some strange way, her past is connected to this murder mystery. She is a person who goes from having a lot of self-loathing and shame, to maybe accepting who she is.
– I thought it was incredibly nice to be able to do a different type of role than the driving character, I’ve done quite a few of those.
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full screen Alexandra Rapaport. Photo: Magnus Wennman
“On the recording I’m just an actor, it gets too crazy otherwise”
Yes, Alexandra Rapaport hardly needs any further presentation. One of the best and most successful of his generation. More than 50 film and television roles. Big breakthrough in 1999 with Ella Lemhagens “Tsatsiki, the mother and the police” which won four Guldbags. Then, among other things, the SVT trilogy “Kronprincessan”/”Kungmoredt”/”Drottningoffret” to films such as “Summer with Göran”, “Once in Phuket” and “The Hunt” with Mads Mikkelsen and later TV series such as “Mother Goose”, “Murder in Sandhamn” and “Heder”.
The latter and “Veronika” she has helped develop and produce for Bigster.
– On the recording I’m just an actor, it gets too crazy otherwise, we maintain hygiene there. Otherwise, my involvement is the script process, editing, sound editing, when we cast actors, I’m inside and pawing at everything.
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full screen Alexandra Rapaport. Photo: Magnus Wennman
The crisis at Viaplay
So it was Viaplay that would have shown “Veronika”. But when they got into financial trouble, to say the least, it was one of the TV series that was sold on.
– SkyShowtime picked it first of all the productions that were sold. I am very happy that the series has found a new home and did not end up in a mothballed bag when there is so much passion and love in what we have done.
After all, you are a co-producer, did you never imagine that things would go awry for Viaplay?
– It has been a golden age with them. We have received payment for our invoices. I intend to be a little diplomatic and say “sad that it didn’t work”.
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full screenElla Hammarsten Liedberg, Martina Haag and Alexandra Rapaport. Photo: Magnus Ragnvid
Starring in Martina Haag film
For Viaplay, Bigster has also produced the feature film “There’s something wrong”. It is based on two partly autobiographical novels by Martina Haag, who also directed the film starring Alexandra Rapaport. Among other things, it is about the divorce that many readers interpreted as a depiction of Erik and Martina Haag’s separation, when he met Lotta Lundgren.
What happens to the movie? Many are curious to see you play “Martina Haag”?
– Martina would never say that, it’s Petra, that’s her name in the book too.
Shanti Roney doesn’t really look like Erik Haag. And don’t talk like him either..?
– (gap) Well, he really doesn’t.
– The film was finished before Christmas. Has become great. Martina Haag stands like an Ardennes horse in the field and… we all want to show the world what we have done. We’ll see. It will come, but in the worst case it may take a while.
FACT
This is Alexandra Rapaport
Name: Alexandra Rapaport.
Age: 52.
Lives: Stockholm.
Family: Husband Joakim Eliasson, director, Blanca, soon 13, Elmer, 16.
Current: With the TV series “Veronika”, premiering today on SkyShowtime.
Read more
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full screen “Murders in Sandhamn”. Photo: Filmlance Int / Johan Paulin
Alexandra Rapaport about…
…”The murders in Sandhamn”:
– I will start working on that in a week. Six new stories, twelve episodes.
… “Mother Goose: The Epilogue”:
– Ten episodes, I have a week left on the recording. Richard Holm, one of the Iron Gang who was there from the beginning, is one of the directors. The other is “Jocke”, my husband (Joakim Eliassonwho have done several previous episodes of the series).
– It will be on TV4, there have been whispers about the end of the year. Then it’s over. I’ve probably lost all credibility when it comes to saying that, I’ve said it before, but it’s an exciting story, the children are more in focus this time.
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full screen Alexandra Rapaport and Tobias Santelmann Photo: Michael Campanella / Getty Images For Skyshowtime
… why a Norwegian, Tobias Santelmann, plays her husband in “Veronika”:
– It has nothing to do with money from Norway for the production. We tried and tried and then I realized that I had seen him in the Danish series “Den som dräper”. “Exit” I have hardly seen, my husband and I got out of step there. He sneakily started looking at it.
… the job at Dramaten:
– I am still employed. They are a bit on my side, “if you’re going to keep your job, maybe you should…”. It was a pandemic and stuff, the leave has been a bit longer than it was supposed to be. The last thing I did there was Lars Norén-the play “Autumn and Winter” 2018 directed by Stefan Larsson.