levok:

Julie’s thoughts on the characters are translated from a NRK interview from 2016 (between season 2 and 3). I really love her reflections, so I thought I would share it with all of you who doesn’t understand Norwegian. Again, keep in mind I’m danish, so please correct me if I made some wrong translations. Video links for the interview are at the bottom of the post.



Eva

Eva, the main character of Season 1. She’s a bit of an outsider. Her best friend won’t talk to her anymore, but she has her boyfriend Jonas. What is her theme?

Julie: My thought was, or something that repeated itself when I talked to the audience and the girls, was the beginning of high school. The first semester of high school. They talked much about how it is to go from the youth school where you have a circle of friends and you are comfortable and you have spent 3 years trying to find your spot. And then suddenly it all ends. You think that it’s going to be like this for the rest of your life, but then you start at a new school and then you have to start all over again. So, that is really what I wanted to tell about the first semester of high school. Finding a new place in a new community and figure out how to navigate in all the bullshit.

Jonas

And she has a boyfriend, Jonas. What kind of relationship would you say they have?

Julie:Jonas has an idea of how the world is and how it should be. It is very important to him and a big part of his identity. In season 1, Eva does not have the same anchor to hold on to as Jonas has. Particularly in the first season, she is very insecure and she has a boyfriend who just figured everything out.

Is Jonas a support for Eva, or does he make her more insecure than she really is?

Julie: I think both. He is supportive, but he gives her the responsibility of her own life. He does not want to be responsible for her all the time and be the only one she clings to, which of course is unhealthy.

And he is the perfect hipster guy. Among the 16-year-olds you met, were there a lot of Jonas'er out there?

Julie: Before we casted anyone, the characters were written. On paper Jonas was an idealist, and maybe a skater or something. But he was completely different on paper than he turned out to be. We had so many different Jonas candidates. But we use some characteristics from the actors, and Marlon who plays Jonas is very cool and a little hipster, so we used that.

Noora

Eva get some friends and one of them is Noora, who is really the heroine of SKAM. And the plot between Eva and Jonas were like a little warm-up to the story of Noora and Williams.

Julie: Noora and William were the first characters I wrote. And the story I really wanted to tell. But I didn’t want it to happen in Season 1, because I thought they needed a bit of history first. So yes. I do not remember the question.

Noora is very much in love with William, and tries to figure out their relationship. Some think that she starts to lose the feminist strength, that she had in the beginning. What do you think about that?

Julie: I think, first, that if Noora did not have some weaknesses, she could not have had a season. When we wanted to reach the target audience, we also did not want to create ideals which were unattainable. We tried to show the character’s weaknesses as well as strengths. If the audience sees that, they believe that they can be strong as well, despite their weaknesses. If the strong characters can’t handle everything, the audience sees that you’re not weak because of that.

William

William he is both the russe prince and a fuckboy. Some people think, that William manipulates Noora and tells her what to do and think. Can’t he be a bad inspiration for boys watching?

Julie: I think that is how it is with all the characters in SKAM, they have bad sides and they have good sides. The problem with the types of assholes, that William represent, is that they shy away from conflicts and confrontation, or don’t respond to messages or anything. And that is something they can learn from William. He’s very confrontational and faces the conflicts. But he has good and bad sides.

Sana

What is it that makes Sana a new type of character on Norwegian TV?

Julie: She is very strategic and strong minded. The main point with Sana was to make a character who chooses her own relationship with her religion. She has made her own choices. She is religious and has a strong faith, but the whole cultural package others might try to push on her, she will not be a part of.

When Sana started getting comments on Instagram because of the beer picture, I thought immediately it was the hijab police, and it turned out not to be. Did you try to challenge the prejudices we have?

Julie: Yes. Yes, that could very well be what I tried.

Youtube links for the interview

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m4XCZNCVnp0



https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BqJknAdE1xM



https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JRe2GLfjx7g



https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=heRkERb8EPc

