In Stayer, Aksel Hennie accomplishes a rare feat: getting audiences to love a character they should hate. The Viaplay series is led by Hennie as Even, a musician whose ego is as massive as his success. In the first episode alone there are a half-dozen reasons to dislike him. But when Even learns his daughter’s mother has tragically died, he gets an equally big wake-up call—and Hennie delivers a great performance.

TVBrittanyF.com spoke to Hennie, who also directed the entire first season of Stayer and served as a songwriter, about what attracted him to the series. He reflected on working both in front of and behind the camera on a show that he deeply connected with. Plus, what rock band influenced his work in Stayer?

Brittany Frederick: Even is not the easiest character, so what was it about him or about Stayer that you were initially able to connect with?

Aksel Hennie: I originally entered this project as an actor only. I read the script, and I have a daughter, and the bond between a father and a daughter really appealed to me… The script was not 100 percent done when I read it, but the feeling of being able to read about a father who is who I feared to be. Being an actor, I’ve been away so much of my life, but I’ve always taken my daughter with me. I’ve always tried to be that father, and even though I’ve tried to be that man, I’ve always had that little uncertainty about, have I been enough? To be able to read about a man that just went overboard on his career and just went 100 percent ego—there are small, specific times in my career when I can say that I chose my daughter over that, or I chose my life over that. He never did. And for me, that was really fascinating.

Also the music thing; I think a lot of actors wants to be rock stars. [Laughs.] Rock stars want to be actors, and actors want to be rock stars and it was such a different experience coming into a studio. One part of my audition was singing. I’ve been singing a lot because I love it, but it’s been for me… I’ve never opened it up, and that felt really scary. And I have a headline of my life: if stuff feels scary, do it. Just go for it.

How did you wind up also directing the whole first season? Was that a natural progression?

There was so much stuff in the theme and in the nature of the series that I really loved, and then I started to work with the script. It became very clear that I had a lot of thoughts about it, and there was no director on it at that point… I started to get more and more into the writing room, and we managed to create a script that I really loved. At some point, the producer just went, why are you not directing this, Aksel?

I’ve directed before; I did a feature called Uno. But to be a director [is] something completely different from being an actor. I respect the craft so much—to have the main responsibility to keep people in front of a screen or a TV is such a huge responsibility, and you have to have something to say. The theme needs to be yours, I feel.

So even though I’ve had national and international questions about me directing, I’ve also been like, let me read the script. And scripts have been good, but they haven’t been me. This time, I just felt this is exactly what I want to do, and I got my favorite DOP [director of photography] on board, and Monster, the production company, really allowed me to own the visuals.

What is it like to be directing a series that you’re not just acting in, but you’re the lead in? How do you approach having responsibilities both in front of and behind the camera?

I’ve always been one of the actors that, I’ve sat down with directors analyzing. I have an intuitive side of me, but I’m very much analytic when it comes to scripts, and I write myself. I wrote Uno, which I also directed and wrote and acted in. That was one of my first movies, and I think I was too young and too inexperienced to be scared, so I just did it, and going along on that road and that adventure, I grew to love it . But that said, I need to have people around me that I trust.

I work with a DOP that I really love. We have the same taste. He understands who I am; he’s seen me acting before. And I feel for me, being in the writing room, it’s almost a cheat code—because there are no questions. Sometimes when the script arrives, you go I don’t know if I dare ask about this, but what does that line mean? When you’re in this writing room, so on top of it, it’s so much easier to execute in a way. I feel a freedom that I rarely feel, and I absolutely love it.

Did you have favorite scenes or episodes in Stayer that you felt turned out particularly well, or that were memorable for you?

There’s this episode where everybody tells this guy that he needs to be with his daughter. He doesn’t want to. He has a gig in a very well-known place in Norway, and he needs to go. He goes like, you need to come, and she’s like no. And he’s like you have to, because everybody’s telling me you have to, so you have to. So he brings his daughter to this gig. He’s already super-stressed, just like, I don’t know why this girl is here. This is his world, and his daughter is there. It’s so not in place for him. There’s a dialogue in that scene which is everything I resent in a human being when it comes to be parenting. A parent should be understanding, a parent should be loving, a parent should be not what he’s doing.

Also, I could really answer your question by saying Hannah [Elise Adolfsen Fjeldbraaten], the girl that plays my daughter—to see how she was flourishing through this project… This is one of her first jobs ever. And she was never off, always delivering. And in this specific day, it was such a crazy day. When it came to production, we had so little time in that space, because it’s a very well-known concert hall. We had to do everything in one day. Nobody thought we could do it. And I said okay, this is my plan… I kind of hammered it through, and we got it on time. So that specific thing a huge thing for me. That specific episode is so much on the theme, with the music, with parenting, with a father and daughter.

The next thing that was is prominent for me is in Season 2. I really wanted to do an episode which is about why [Even] has become who he is. I can see what he is, but I never quite understand why he is like that. In Season 2, I wanted to show that. When nobody thought they were going to hear about it, suddenly it’s there—and then he shows something different.

Because I blew [our] budget in Season 1 doing crazy stuff, they said Aksel, if you want to do that episode, you can make it a bottle episode. It’s done in one day, so 45 minutes in one day. It’s me and Jeppe Laursen, who is one of the most underrated actors in Norway. He’s so good, and we hammered through it. And in that episode, there is this specific point where my brother… he has never wanted to understand that something happened to me that did not happen to him, and we can see that realization going off in a scene. For me, that was so strong.

In this specific show, there are so many themes and situations and characters that I really, really feel strongly about, and that’s why I wanted to do it.

Since Stayer has such a huge music component, and you contributed to the songwriting for the show, who are some of the musical artists that you love?

I have a broad variety of bands that I love and genres that I love. I mostly listen to rock and rap. I grew up with NWA, Ice Cube, Ice-T, Snoop Dogg, Dr. Dre… I loved everything about hip-hop and rap culture. Was a graffiti artist, and then when I grew up a bit, I became a rock fan. I think my favorite band is Kings of Leon. I absolutely love it, and Kings of Leon is a massive reference when it comes to the music that Even is playing in the TV show.

In Norway, this thing about wanting to sing in English, it’s a thing. In the old days, like 20-30 years ago, nobody sang in Norwegian. Everybody was singing in English. And then there was this huge turn; now if you want to sing in English [it’s] like no, it won’t sell.We tried to send the music to a promoter, and they’re like Aksel, we know you, we know you can fill concert halls, but can you write in Norwegian? [Laughs.] It’s fascinating, but I love a lot of Norwegian music. I find our music scene to be really, really good in a lot of genres. But a lot of my favorite bands are from America.

Stayer streams Thursdays on Viaplay. Photo Credit: Courtesy of Viaplay.

Article content is (c)2020-2026 Brittany Frederick and may not be excerpted or reproduced without express written permission by the author. Follow me on Twitter at @BFTVTwtr and on Instagram at @BFTVGram. For story pitches, contact me at tvbrittanyf@yahoo.com.