Pursuing any career within the entertainment industry is a hugely risky and intimidating endeavor. But not only didFrida Gustavssontackle that challenge head-on and manage to build a successful career as a model, but then she dared to leave it behind to go after her biggest dream, becoming an actor.
Gustavsson is currently celebrating the premiere of theVikingssequel series,Vikings: Valhalla. The show is set about one hundred years after the events of the original series, during a time of sky-high tension between the Vikings and English royals. When Gustavsson’s Freydis Eriksdotter embarks on a harrowing journey from Greenland to Kattegat in an effort to track down a personal enemy, she and her brother Leif Eriksson (Sam Corlett) reluctantly become heavily involved in the Viking revenge mission against the English.
With Season 1 ofVikings: Valhallanow available to stream on Netflix, Gustavsson took the time to join us for an episode ofCollider Ladies Nightto offer some insight into how exactly she successfully made the pivot from modeling to acting. Turns out, that itch to act was there from the very start. She began:
“I’ve always loved performing and being in front of people. So when I was little, I was acting. I was in theater classes and then pre-puberty I went from being this little small child to being incredibly tall, like a stick figure, and I kind of had a hard time with that. I didn’t feel comfortable in my own body. All the girls had boobs in school and I was just straight, and I didn’t feel very good about myself. So I kind of lost my confidence to go up in front of people and be like, ‘Look at me!’ And by some kind of divine intervention, someone had a plan for me to deal with all of that, so I was scouted eating meatballs at Ikea. [Laughs] The most Swedish thing ever! When they first came up to me they were like, ‘Oh, do you want to be a model?’ I was choking on my meatball going, ‘What?’ I spoke to my dad who was there with me and we said it might be a good thing for me to try to break out of my shell a little bit and get more comfortable with myself.”
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Their instincts were spot on. Gustavsson’s modeling career took off. She’s walked shows forLouis Vuitton,Chanel,Alexander McQueen,Jean Paul Gaultier, and many more. She’s also been in a slew of magazines, advertising campaigns, and even was namedElleSweden’s Model of the Year in 2011. Things were going extremely well, but Gustavsson’s heart was pulling her in another direction.
“I’ve always wanted to act. I’ve always had that feeling inside of me that I was like, ‘This is the only thing I think I’m ever gonna be truly good at. This is the only thing that I ever really want to pursue.’ But I also have so much respect for the craft and I think coming from a modeling background, sometimes people look at you in a certain way and it may be difficult to be taken seriously sometimes, so I was very aware that it wasn’t gonna be an easy road transitioning into acting in the way that I wanted to act. I didn’t want to play the girlfriend in the bikini. [There’s] nothing wrong with those types of parts, but it just wasn’t what I wanted to do. I had done that with my modeling career. If I wanted to just be a sexual object for people to look at, I would have stayed. It wasn’t what I wanted, so I took a leap of faith. I quit at the top of my career, I moved back to Sweden, I started doing pre-drama school courses, and it was hard! I didn’t have an agent and I couldn’t get an agent. Nobody wants to work with a person who’s never done anything before. It was an interesting couple of years where I felt like I learned so much about myself and the hard work that you need to put in to get somewhere in this industry.”
While it might have taken some time, Gustavsson got there and she is an absolute powerhouse as Freydis inVikings: Valhalla. Every single ounce of her work in Season 1 is filled with intensity and conviction, but one of the most striking parts of Gustavsson’s performance is that she actually did all but one of her stunts. Yes, many actors do opt to do some of their stunt work themselves, but the combat Freydis gets involved in feels especially ferocious and is filmed in a way that requires the utmost authenticity from Gustavsson. But those pressures and even an injury didn’t stop her.
“I was fortunate enough to work with the most incredible stunt crew, and we quickly realized that I was able to do it. We had to put in a lot of work, but except for one takedown in the fight in Episode 3, I do everything else. I was supposed to do the takedown, but we did it and then I slid and I fractured my elbow, so after that, I wasn’t allowed to do the takedown again. But apart from that, every single thing that you see, I have done. I have a wonderful double, Karin [Floengard Jonsson], who is a Swedish stunt performer who is excellent who has been my rock and cried with me and bled with me. When I’ve been on the ground and you’re bleeding and you cracked your hand open, she’s always been there to lift me up and just look at me and go, ‘I know you’re able to do it. We’ve put in the hours. Come on. Let’s do it!’ So I’ve had my Team Freydis and we worked really, really well together. It was hard work, but I’m very proud of the results.”
Eager to hear more about Gustavsson’s journey in film and television thus far? Check out her episode of Collider Ladies Night at the top of this article or listen to the uncut version of the conversation in podcast form below. Gustavsson looked back on some of her most creatively fulfilling modeling gigs, revisited auditioning forStar Wars: The Force Awakens, addressed more ofVikings: Valhalla’s biggest moments, and more.
