When you think of a fake documentary (or mockumentary) on people who are hunting for some sort of supernatural creature, the last thing you’d imagine it would be is trolls. However, Norwegian filmmaker Andre Ovredal thought he would take a dive into this particular style of filmmaking with his second feature-length film “Troll Hunter.”
In “Troll Hunter” we follow three filmmaking students Finn (Hans Morten Hansen), Johanna (Johanna M0rck) and Kalle (Tomas Alf Larsen) who are trying to following and make a small film out of bear hunter Hans (Otto Jespersen). However, the three students realize that they’re in something much bigger, figuratively and physically, than they could have imagined when they discover that the mythical creatures their parents told them about actually exist.
We got the chance to talk to the Norwegian director as we talk about trolls, the beauty of the Norwegian landscape and the definition of a “mockumentary.”
ShockYa: At first glance when watching “Troll Hunter,” I kind of got a bit of a “Blair Witch Project” when apparently that was never your intention to begin with. Can you elaborate on that?
Andre 0vredal: It’s always been that. It’s always been a documentary more than a mockumentary in a way, but I guess the definition of “fake documentary” is mocukmentary. That hasn’t always been the case. Five minutes after I thought of the idea for the film, the next thought was how the hell do we make this film on a Norwegian budget? Well, we’ll do it as a documentary and we make it really scary but of course it’s going to be funny as well because it’s trolls. But it’s definitely always been a mockumentary.
ShockYa: How did you come on to create the trolls the way that you did? They’re very big and scary, you easily could have made them cute and cuddly.
Andre 0vredal: Yeah, it’s just the way that the Norwegian trolls are. It’s the folklore where they look like these huge beasts basically. In the old times they were used to scare children from doing something they shouldn’t. And a parent would say, “Don’t go out in the forest or else the trolls are going to come and get you.” But they were always these big, scary creatures and I think it creates more of an interesting conflict obviously with small creatures because big ones are badder. (Laughs)
ShockYa: It was a small cast but how did you find the right actor for Hans (played by Otto Jespersen) since he’s such a main character or more so is the main character?
Andre 0vredal: I wanted to have somebody with really solid charisma and this kind of ability to both be funny through his own words and to find a guy who can also be a very dull, dry kind of person. Otto (Jespersen), who’s playing the troll hunter, he’s a Norwegian comedian so he was actually attached to the project even when I was writing it. I wrote the script with him in mind. I think I tried to utilize his sense of humor as much as possible but not so much that it became a different character because the character of the troll hunter doesn’t talk so much. He’s kind of a loner. And (Otto) Jespersen is kind of a very talkative comedian. He goes out on these kind of several minute long rants about something with a really great sense of sarcasm and humor. And I think that works really well with the way that I saw the troll hunter with his kind of dry sarcasm.
ShockYa: When it comes to his character, at a couple of points in the film he’s filling out this troll hunter form. Where did that come up in the script-writing process? How’d you think of that one?
Andre 0vredal: (Laughs) I was just researching information about how you handle bears, because that’s also a part of the film, and I came over this form that the government has made for how to handle it when you shoot a bear you have to fill out this form afterwards. So I thought that I had to put this into the movie.
ShockYa: Correct me if I’m wrong, I heard that there weren’t many rehearsals prior to shooting? Why is that?
Andre 0vredal: Yeah, we rehearsed very little before shooting but we talked a lot about the characters in the film and how it was going to play out. We only had three days of basic rehearsals and then we shot everything quite improvisational because it became very much alive, everything in the film. I tried to avoid to make it feel like acting as much as possible so that it goes with the tone of being a documentary. I had a script but we went away from the dialogue in the script because I wanted it to be the actors own words rather than my written words. Of course the content is pretty much the same but sometimes they’ll go out in a complete tangent which was very interesting.
ShockYa: Well improv on a documentary-style film like “Trollhunter” seemed to work. I never knew what dialogue was improv and what was from the script because it all kind of flows the same.
Andre 0vredal: Yeah, thanks.
ShockYa: I love how you took advantage of the whole Norwegian landscape and you were able to jump from one beautiful plain to another. I heard that at one point you guys went from one location to another and you’d start adding little snippets of scenes for the story, is that true?
Andre 0vredal: Yeah, we completely improvised even locations. We would drive along the countryside and suddenly we’d see this place. We would say, “Okay, do we have a scene so we can shoot here because it’s so beautiful? What if we shoot this scene here?” We definitely worked like that for a long time. For the first half of the shoot we were driving along all over the Norwegian countryside and we were improvising so much because we were kind of making a road movie in that part of the shoot. So we had to utilize the Norwegian — it was always a part of the film, and it is in the script as well in every way. We were going to already feature a lot of nature and I think that’s a big part of the whole film’s mood and size in a way from all the different landscapes and the trolls in relation to all of these different places.
“Troll Hunter” will be released in limited theaters this June 10th and now available on VOD, iTunes, Amazon.com and in theaters starting June 10th.
