Original subtitles

- Morning, Bill. - Good morning, sir.

- How you doing? - [Bill] Doing well, sir. Thank you.

Yourself? Sleep well?

- [Odar] Uh, not so well. - No.

No? [Bill chuckles]

[Odar] Today is the last day of shooting after six months.

We are actually really shooting the last scene of season one.

Um, that was always planned.

I like emotional endings of shootings.

It was really a beautiful journey.

[woman] Let's roll the camera, please.

[tense music playing]

[Odar] And action!

[in French] Let her go!

[people yelling]

Stop!

No!

Hi. My name is Jantje.

I'm the showrunner and head writer, um, of Dark.

Of Dark.

[both laughing]

[man] Bo and Jantje, take one.

[Odar] Uh, hi. I'm Baran bo Odar.

I'm the showrunner, director, and executive producer of 1899.

[unsettling music playing]

[Friese] It's about a ship of immigrants going from Europe to America.

And on their journey, they encounter something very mysterious.

[unsettling music continues]

But we can talk spoiler now, no? I guess, yeah. So it's…

The whole show starts as a period drama

slash turning into some kind of a horror show.

But then it turns into a sci-fi show

because what we will reveal is that they are stuck in a simulation.

And what they will have to find out is,

first, who put them in the simulation.

And then, the bigger question, how do they get out of the simulation?

[Friese] Ultimately, it's about our existence.

Why we're here on this planet

and who we are and who created us.

Um…

- Very deep, deep, meaningful questions. - It's all good.

[man in German] Everything is connected.

Future,

past,

and present.

[in English] We said to Bo and Jantje, "Your cast in Dark was so amazing."

"Who can come from Dark?"

[man] Even while we were still shooting Dark,

I knew that they were going to do a new series, a big series.

They really wanted to be surrounded by new talents, by new people.

They wanted, you know, just to get new ideas and new impulses.

And I knew that it was going to be an international cast,

so I didn't expect at all to be involved in that.

Eventually I received a call from Bo telling me,

"Listen, you know, we always wanted to… to get

some distance between the work on Dark and now the new project and everything."

"But actually, when we consider it, there's enough distance now."

"There's a part in that show, the captain."

"And we just think you're most apt to do it."

That was a very happy day for me.

[glass clinking]

Six hours ago, we received a message, coordinates southwest of our course.

We believe this message comes from the Prometheus.

[Brockmann] The character of the captain,

he was described as being a sort of soulful, world-weary,

kind of weathered but also very handsome character.

Andreas was someone that sort of fits that brief perfectly.

I think there's a kind of through line of his character from Dark.

[glitchy audio squawks]

[Pietschmann] In Dark, I had to understand most of it,

because I was the traveler from the future,

from the past, and from everywhere.

So I knew what was going on and was trying to prevent it.

Now, I'm more or less the one experiencing those weird happenings

and not understanding them.

So I'm now on the voyage to understand and to find out together with Maura.

[disorienting rush]

[gasps]

I think the story is like a labyrinth, as Maura's mind

and Maura's obsession with neurology

and connections in the brain.

It probably has been the most challenging character

that I have ever played and will ever play.

I am Maura Franklin.

[Maura] I'm not crazy!

I… I know what I've seen. I'm not crazy!

[distressing music fades away]

[Bevan] Emily's character, Maura,

seemed to be an unconventional hero

from the way that Bo and Jantje described her as a character.

[brooding synth music plays]

Emily has shown in her huge range of work up until now

that she had all of those facets of being slightly mysterious, unknowable,

incredibly strong, dynamic.

She nailed her audition.

[woman] Eyk. Eyk Larsen.

[heavy sigh]

Maura Franklin.

[delicate, mysterious music playing]

You're the captain.

[Beecham] When Maura first meets Eyk,

she sees a certain likeness to herself

and… a vulnerability.

Maura is a woman that is so different from everyone he met before.

It's not falling in love at first glance,

but he can sense that this is a woman

that is really different from all the other women around him.

They can feel, without telling, that they have a similar problem.

[child singing eerily jaunty German folk song]

Why do you take such an interest in the Prometheus?

Did you know anyone on board?

[Bevan] Normally we would cast actors,

auditioning them in real time in this room.

On 1899, we couldn't do that 'cause we were mid-pandemic,

so we did it on Zoom.

It was an opportunity to reach out at a moment

when the world was really closing down.

[overlapping, indistinct chatter]

[Bevan] Bo and Jantje wanted to have this truly international cast,

and they wanted everyone speaking their own language.

We ended up casting out of England, Germany,

Norway, Iceland, France,

Hong Kong…

Spain, Poland, Portugal…

Did you say Denmark?

[Bevan] That was a truly huge challenge for us,

and I think a really groundbreaking idea from them.

[in Spanish] Ah, waiter.

More.

Don't you think you've had enough?

The problem is you're a fucking bore.

Ángel, lower your voice, please.

"Ángel, lower your voice, please. Calm down."

None of these fuckers understands a word I'm saying. Why should I?

[in English] 1899 is really a complicated construct

in terms of how to deal with different languages.

We have a crew from all kinds of different countries,

but our main cast is also from all different countries,

and so are the characters in the show.

[in Cantonese] I am Isabella Wei. My character's name in 1899 is Ling Yi.

[in English] The people on the ship,

they think that Ling Yi is a Japanese geisha

who is traveling with her servant.

In reality, she is a very poor girl from Hong Kong.

[in Cantonese] What would you need that many knives for?

[woman] I don't know.

Try and pretend you know.

[in English] We'd like to add, "Just eat it."

And so, I think you're picking the knife and the fork.

Maybe you share one more look, and then you say, like, "Just eat it."

- Okay. - Yeah, okay.

- A certain… Do you know…? - [Wei speaking in Cantonese]

- [whispers] That how you say it? - Yeah.

- Okay. - Is that with "just," or is that "eat it"?

There are days where I have to listen to Cantonese the whole day,

and I have no clue what they're saying, but I can tell what they're saying

by rehearsing a lot

and trusting the actors that they tell me,

"This is the angry version of 'I love you' in Cantonese,"

as almost everything in Cantonese sounds, to us, very angry.

[Friese] We had to come up with a lot of systems

for us to understand what everyone is saying.

Um, is this in character? Is this not in character?

[woman] And let's roll sound.

[in French] You used me to get what you wanted.

[Wei] Cantonese, Spanish, Danish, Polish, German, French.

We all have language assistants with us on set

who kind of help us if we have missed a line or have said something wrong.

[moody, mysterious music playing]

[in Danish] My name is Lucas Lynggaard Tønnesen.

I play Krester in the new Netflix series 1899.

[woman in German] Everyone, from the start!

[in English] The first scene we see Krester in,

it was actually one of the scenes I was most worried about.

The dining room is full of these high-profile individuals,

and this guy suddenly appears who looks like a freak,

asking something on a language they don't understand.

[door slamming]

[in Danish] Excuse me. Excuse me.

Excuse me.

We need help.

[woman] You embrace the fact that you don't understand one another.

You don't have to spend the scene going, "I don't understand you."

It's just in the scene, and you just have to get on with it.

Much like you would in real life, if you were found in these situations.

You just have to just… run with it.

[dissonant music warbles]

[Krester yells]

[in Danish] We need a doctor! Let go of me!

[man in English] The weird part, it's speaking your language

to someone that you know is not understanding you.

I have a love interest in the show, Krester,

with whom I communicate a lot… in very special ways.

But not with words, just with the eyes,

with the body language.

And I think that makes it very special.

A lot more special than

what it would be if I could just say it.

[dissonant, yearnful music playing]

'Cause of his eyes, he can tell that

Krester has a similar past as he has.

They understand each other very well.

They understand troubles they've gone through

because they're both gay in a time where you can't be gay.

[Tønnesen] It's absolutely amazing to have all these nationalities combined.

We can communicate in sort of a way.

It really depends on how we see through the language barrier.

[jaunty piano line plays]

Ladies and gentlemen…

[laughter]

Ladies and gent… Oh, is it?

- He's trying to…? - Come here.

Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to… [tudum] Word.

What does "bangers and mash" mean?

- Bangers? - Bangers?

"Bangers and mash."

[speaking in Cantonese]

- Sorry. - [repeating in Cantonese]

[speaking in French]

Oh, God.

[speaking in Danish]

[speaking in Spanish]

There's a lot of people from different countries working.

That's really cool.

[speaking in German]

I feel like it's "custard."

No, it's not.

[speaking in Polish]

I agree.

[in Polish] My name's Maciej Musiał, and I play Olek in 1899.

It's fine.

[Ling Yi panting]

[Musiał in English] Olek finds Ling Yi on the deck

when she's trying to hide from her mother.

And he's like, "Oh, come. I can hide you."

[Olek in Polish] Are you cold?

[in English] It's a beautiful scene 'cause we don't understand each other.

She speaks Cantonese, and I speak Polish.

Just by our intentions, we understand each other.

[in Polish] Dirty. But warm.

[in English] I believe that in languages, you have seeds of cultures,

of feelings, of… of different countries,

and in order to, like, meet them,

you have to be brave enough to listen to them.

I think this show gives you the opportunity.

It feels like you're… you're traveling to all those places.

[producer] I've got something to send you Josefine sent me from Denmark.

There's no quarantine there

so it looks like we might be able to go to Denmark…

[Odar] The first issue we were facing was the pandemic

that happened that, yeah,

turned this world upside down.

We wanted to make a European show

with a European cast and a European crew.

Wanted, actually, also to travel to all these places

where we wanted to shoot and just realized,

"Wait, we can't do that anymore."

[producer] We have to get special dispensation…

Every production is always a headache. It's always a crazy puzzle.

But in COVID, it's insane.

You're not only dealing with people who are going to be in other shows

or traveling from countries. They've got families.

You're also dealing with quarantine.

Quarantine when they go home, quarantine when they come to us.

So if someone's coming two days, you're taking them out for three weeks.

That's when the Volume started to be talked about.

[quirky music playing]

[crew speaking indistinctly]

Me and Bo, I think we're both quite strong in stressful situations.

There are people who just crumble under stress.

And I think both… Bo and I, we kind of… grow.

[Odar] Someone at Netflix told us about the Volume technology.

At the beginning, we didn't really take it seriously, to be honest,

because we are more the very traditional filmmakers.

Anything that can be done in camera, we prefer.

Like, we really hate green screen.

Venturing into something that's completely new is very difficult,

and it helps if the people at the table

understand what each and every one is talking about.

Some key figures for us were definitely Udo Kramer and Nik Summerer.

They already know what kind of look we're aiming for,

and we know that we can communicate with them

and that the communication works.

The Volume is an incredible artistic tool to work with.

But it also is quite a beast in its own rights,

and it can be really challenging

to actually tame this Volume animal.

[Odar] Every person who reads about it

or watches some "making of" always thinks it's a magic tool.

You just push a button, you choose any landscape you want.

And in seconds you have it, and you can do it right away.

It's a lot of prep work.

It is a lot of frustration.

It is literally a new way of filmmaking.

[Friese] Going into production,

we didn't know whether this was actually going to work.

We did a lot of research,

but there wasn't so much research we could do.

There was just basically one show that used this technology before.

[Odar] We did the test shoot in London.

Really tested things that we knew will not work

to understand why it's not working.

Really harsh sunlight scenes are still tricky to create

because the sun is such a hot source

that it's really hard to create on stage.

But the stuff that actually then worked…

And that was, for example, the evening atmosphere.

We shot with a woman standing there in the desert

and had this really beautiful reddish sunlight

on her hair and skin tone.

It was really mind-blowing for us that it looked so real.

We've looked at each other, Nik and I.

And we knew, "Okay, this is definitely the way we're going."

[interviewer] How would you describe the Volume

to somebody who knows nothing about it?

Well, I tried to describe it to my son, and I just said…

[inhales deeply, gasps in awe]

[laughing]

"It's like the biggest TV you'll ever see,

and we just act in front of it."

The Volume is a massive, massive cylindrical wall of LED lights.

And it literally can take you anywhere in the world.

[in Cantonese] Mother!

[man in Portuguese] Don't go! Help!

[in English] We call it the Dark Bay.

It's built in the oldest building complex here on the lot.

That's the Marlene-Dietrich stage, built in 1910.

Fritz Lang's Metropolis was shot in there.

They used, on these stages, rear projection.

The Volume itself is the development of that technology.

It's rear projection brought into the future.

We have 350 square meter shooting area,

270 degrees of viewing angles.

And has an industry-first revolving stage,

which can basically move the entire set

and enable the filmmaker to shoot 360 degrees

in whatever environment you could think of.

[production designer] We thought we could bring this on a new level

and try to not change the set all over again,

but change part of the set that fits in like a pizza slice.

Get this part, bring it in here.

Whoops.

Go back, shoot it.

[Summerer] So now we have a turnaround situation

of just a few minutes.

Actually, we have camera assistants complaining

that they have no time to have a cigarette.

[woman] Start the rain, please.

[Summerer] The other great thing that we have in here is a rain rig.

And this is something where I think nobody believed in but Bo

that this is possible.

And I'm not talking about drizzle, I'm talking about proper rain,

where we've been all standing, and the actors have been standing,

and we all got really wet.

And it worked like a breeze.

Nice. Come here, I'll help you.

And this boot.

Yay, here's my flying sweetheart!

It's okay. It's okay. I'm fine. Thank you so much.

[actor] Hallelujah.

It's really hard to kill people.

Hiya. I'm, uh, Fflyn Edwards,

um, and I just did a stunt.

Hey. Nice to meet you, guys.

Introduce yourself.

I'm Antje, the stunt coordinator on this show.

I'm really proud to be here, and he did just an awesome job.

I don't wanna do this anymore.

That's why I… I rest.

I already killed him multiple times. You know, the boy. So, um…

[crew member yelling indistinctly]

Yeah, I think they're doing it up there again.

[in Danish] Throw the boy overboard!

[Maura in English] Stop!

Don't do this, please!

[in Danish] Don't let them stop us!

[gunshot]

[all clamoring, shouting]

[Erwolter] To be honest, I feel guilty that I start this riot,

and I'm sick and sitting right here in a robe.

[laughs]

[tense percussive music plays]

[Rau] Three, two, one, go!

[Edwards, Beecham yell]

[resounding splash]

[quirky music playing]

When you do work in a virtual production,

you have to create content beforehand.

You're kind of pulling postproduction up front before shooting.

It was new for everyone on both sides,

on our traditional filmmaker side,

but also on the side of the guys who are actually doing all the backgrounds,

Framestore from London.

[man] We started this when there was no script.

Jantje was writing. The story was evolving.

There was just an idea.

With virtual production, we have to provide content,

visual effects, before we film,

so that on the day when we film,

we have content that we can provide and get it in camera.

[in German] It's great, no?

[in English] The basic key for me as a designer is there is no virtual set

and the physical set or different sets.

There's a set, and the set is following the story.

The Volume itself, it's logistically challenging.

It requires far more prep time.

You need to be close in contact with all your colleagues.

Working with Udo on the production design

was a new experience, I think, for some of our artists

because they were used to receiving production designs,

and just translating them.

In this case, for 1899, we were developing them from scratch with him.

His sets needed to fit into our environments or our virtual sets,

and our virtual sets needed to work with his.

It's a lot of fun to do it and see so many people, um, being on it.

Not that feeling, "Ah, I'll fix it in post."

Or, "We do it now, and we see later what's going on."

It's now or never, and you get the magic to be on the point.

It's stressful, but the payoff is amazing.

Can you see my screen?

[Odar] Yes.

Can you show the LED wall just so I understand where it would be?

[Summerer] Christian Kästner and the team of Framestore,

they shaped all this in the beginning.

So we had a lot of scoutings

in a virtual world of where we wanna go.

What angles are we shooting? Where could we stand with the camera?

Where we wanna be?

This one is still the trickiest to sort out.

[Odar] Uh-huh. So where's the shopping center?

[Odar chuckles]

It's fun. You're like a little child.

You create worlds, and then you feel like it's not real enough,

and then you add stuff here and add there.

And step by step, you're getting closer,

creating a reality that doesn't feel like it was created, but it actually exists.

[in German] Yes, thanks.

[in English] Could you go back?

I sent a screenshot

of an area I really liked.

Do you see that?

[Kästner] Bo was shooting ocean plates in Scotland,

and the helicopter captured a valley that he really liked.

He told us, "You know when we talked about Scotland?"

"This is what I really would like it to look like."

We decided very quickly,

"Okay, let's go up and scan the environment."

So we did a drone scanning of the environment, photogrammetry.

After that, we modeled and… and stitched the environment,

and that's our background for Scotland.

[delicate, mysterious music playing]

[woman] Um, already much better.

There's still some kind of strange plants,

some stragglers.

They stand out quite a bit, especially when we rotate to the right.

So that's real rock? Fake rock?

That's us too, right?

[Kästner] Being such a core part of the production,

with 16 people live here

when we're shooting every day,

that's super exciting

because for a lot of visual effects artists, this is new.

It's been, you know, a little bit of a dream come true, I must say,

that you can be part of the puzzle.

[cryptic music playing]

[in French] Where are we?

How did we get here?

[in English] What is very important for me when it comes to the Volume work

is the pre-lighting,

so that I have time to establish this world,

to create the lighting here,

and that whatever light mood is in the preproduction,

created on the wall, is actually going into the foreground.

And they, you know, fit well together.

And we're still 1899, so there's no florescent lights or anything,

so it should be all warmish.

It's all fire-based flames, basically.

The Hong Kong harbor is my favorite set, I would say.

The mood that is created, everything that is on the screens

and the foreground are marrying so nicely together.

It's just such an…

Yeah, beautiful scenery.

[woman] The ambience, the peacefulness of this set,

the way Nik sees the light, how fast he works,

they managed to create something that was so…

I don't know, that was

the most beautiful set I've ever seen in my life.

[man] You don't need to have a part of your brain focused

on projecting and imagining.

You can just receive it.

It looks real. It really looks real.

And it's a huge help for us.

So we don't have to travel to the desert nor to the North Pole nor to the glaciers.

You can change that within a minute.

[Beecham] It would be a different experience on green screen.

It just illuminates, like, literally everything.

You can see the whole landscape in front of you and the lighting and…

So you're really looking at the sea.

[Craig] It doesn't get less thrilling.

You may stay on a sound stage for 14, 15 hours,

but it still takes your breath away that this is possible.

[Wei] It's so real that a lot of us, when we first stepped onto the Volume,

got seasick when we were watching waves in the background go up and down.

I said to Izzy, I was like,

"I just can't believe that we've been able to make a series on here, you know?"

"It's just… It's incredible."

She was saying, "I wanna do something on location next,"

and I said, "I absolutely don't. I just wanna stay in here."

[passengers chattering indistinctly]

[Wei] So much has been going into this kimono over so many months.

All of the designs on this costume have actually Incorporated elements

from the entire show.

On the bottom of my kimono, we actually have the waves from the ocean.

And then we have this Japanese landscape,

and it's embroidered.

On my sleeves, there are some mountains,

um, upside down, like the camera flips upside down many times.

My favorite detail of this whole thing is actually on the obi.

We have a cockroach in the front,

and we have a bunch of little cockroaches in the shape of a triangle,

which is the earth sign that is shown a lot in the series.

[tense percussive music plays]

[Daigeler in German] Are they waiting outside already?

[man] You are all third-class passengers.

You really need to look tired and exhausted.

[Daigeler] Wonderful extras, beautiful, with costume and makeup.

Could you put on the hat? Thanks.

[Friese in English] It's great to work with people

we've already worked with on Dark,

but I think it's also great to have some new additions in the team.

And I'm especially really thankful for Bina

because she's just such a talent and such a hardworking person.

- [in German] Do you like it? - [Daigeler] It's a nice souvenir, no?

[Daigeler in English] All the costumes, they are all done in our workroom.

We made everything.

We made all the shoes, the hats.

There's a lot of embroidery.

We printed a lot of fabrics.

It was all dyed and aged.

So the workroom was huge and a very long process.

[in German] Do you think it's prettier when you do it this way?

[in English] At the beginning,

all the characters had like four or five changes

because of the different dates of the story.

When we discussed the evolution of each character,

we realized that

we rather prefer that each character has one hero piece,

like a superhero costume.

[Beecham] Basically, our characters don't change.

There's many days, and they are in the same costume.

And that's, of course, a clue to that this is not really as it seems

and maybe we're not in a reality.

Yeah, Maura is a very modern character for her time.

[Wagner] For Maura, we wanted to have a more simple hairstyle.

In this period, women secretly do blush and lip tint.

Maura does not.

She also has very simple, um, hair accessories

as she has just two golden pins

in the hairstyle.

In 1899, all the women still were wearing corsets.

Wouldn't Maura, perhaps, be a person

who, once she is on the boat,

she just forgets about the corset and just said,

"I am without it. I'm done with it."

[Friese] It has been such a joy to see how the characters actually are shaped

by the costumes they are wearing.

And it has been for me, as a writer,

really inspiring

to see how costume and makeup

influence also my choices on the characters.

[in French] You know what they say?

Men invented dresses and heels so that women can't run away.

[ship's horn blaring]

[Klausing] To find that location, to find the look of the story,

was probably the biggest challenge art department had to face.

There's no ship of that era

which is still floating somewhere or in a museum.

They're all gone.

We're talking about a ship which is 330 meters long

and was made to travel over the North Atlantic.

And to recreate these environments

is something which takes a lot of energy from a production designer.

[in German] That's the first pipe, second pipe.

[in English] I'm addicted to details.

Could be the architecture, the surfaces, the moldings, the props,

the set decoration, the right things at the right place.

[woman] We had a lot of reference materials.

And I think this is a good thing to start,

so that you have a feeling for this period, you have to know the rules.

You have to know what you can do and what you shouldn't do.

Or if you break the rules, then you should do it on purpose

and not because you didn't know.

1899, what would they have?

No, you should be sure about that,

and then you see what you can find, and you build it around that.

[shovels scraping coal]

[workers chattering indistinctly]

- [leadman blows whistle] - [worker] We're moving on!

[man] The world is very big, visually.

The sets are incredible.

One especially for me is the engine room,

where there's secret panels,

and we find these incredible, designed futuristic machines,

which are mother brains, to operate the simulation.

And I seem to know where all of them are,

and… and I'm able to manipulate them.

I have a device, which is this wonderful silver thing.

It's got moving plates on it,

which are different codings

so I can plug it into these motherboard computers

and manipulate the simulation itself.

Even if we use something like the Volume,

we want to create as much as possible in-camera.

So everything needs to feel believable

and that you can touch it.

In Dark, we had the time machine, and here, we have a weird object.

We're really fans of gadgets.

[Barnard] The design behind these gadgets are very, like, steampunk-esque

but of a completely different world.

1899, through its design, is creating its own genre almost.

[power humming]

[console beeps]

[device beeping, trilling]

[beeps]

[power surges]

[Virginia] What's going on?

[full, resonant tones reverberate]

[whispers] Follow me.

It's like a living organism.

You don't know what it's doing with you. It's a little bit alien-esque.

We said from the beginning the ship should be its own character.

That you feel it's like a weird monster.

[Kramer] We wanted to see the ship not just as a period ship,

steaming across the Atlantic.

It's more like a living structure in itself.

The anti-Titanic, leading directly into the brain of each character.

[protrusions rustling, roiling]

[Kramer] We can go from one cabin to the next

through hidden shafts, ventilation chambers, tubes,

places that transport the sensation of,

"My God, there's a door behind the wall" feeling.

"I want to see behind the wall."

You feel that you get deeper and deeper into something that you should stay out.

I like this kind of tension.

Look at this.

Oh.

Then I disappear.

[chuckles]

Whew!

[hook-and-loop rips]

[rapid, flitting percussion]

[ponderous, emphatic beats]

[disconcerting tones play]

[cymbal drawing out tone]

1899 was recorded all over the world.

The Tangram Ensemble from London.

Sinfonietta Cracovia,

this amazing string section, the same people I worked with on Dark.

[elegant, plaintive music]

And then there's actually quite a lot of vocal material.

They are the three main elements.

And there's everything that I'm sort of doing with that.

I took a lot of that material with me

here back to Iceland and took it into

various ships down here in the harbor.

So I'm taking those recordings

and actually feeding them through a speaker, um,

into various parts of the ship,

and sort of using the music to resonate…

literally resonate the hull of the boat.

[resounding bang]

Kinda terrifying, honestly.

It… It becomes something else.

It becomes very, um, alive.

[full, resonant tones reverberate]

[Henry] Our brain is a very complicated construct.

As much as we can try to forget the things we don't want to remember,

we will never be able to delete them entirely.

They're part of who we are.

Woven into our very fabric.

[man] And landscape!

[Volume whooshing]

[electronic trilling]

[Henry] There's no reason to be afraid.

This isn't real.

Remember?

It's so complex that I couldn't say, "Well, it's about this."

[laughs] It's about so many things.

And, um, I guess if you ask me what it's about

and you ask someone else, and you get different answers,

in a way, they're both true.

I guess I think 1899… Yes, it's incredibly confusing.

And, um, all of these…

No, I don't wanna say that. Um, okay. [chuckles]

Should not say it's incredibly confusing.

My picture of it is like a round puzzle that is moving at great speed,

and Jantje's putting in the pieces.

I have no idea.

I mean, I have no idea how she keeps it all straight.

I mean, I don't know how they do it.

[Friese] The only thing that I think that's really important with mystery

is that you don't listen to anyone who says, "I didn't understand this,"

or, "I think this needs to be made clearer,"

or anything like that.

I just go, "La, la."

I gave up to try and understand her brain a long time ago.

She puts different, strange worlds together into one,

and you think there's no way

they can ever connect, they can ever be combined.

But then later on, it reveals that the one is actually the source of the other one.

[Friese] I'm a huge puzzle freak.

I love mysteries,

and I love, um, solving any kind of riddles.

For me now to be like the person

who actually builds the riddle is just pure pleasure.

So I'm actually, yes, I'm doing it for the fans,

but I'm also doing it for myself.

[Barnard] Jantje is doing all the writing.

Uh, the rest of us are on set with Bo directing.

As things are being dripped back to Jantje within the edit room,

she can really see what's working, what isn't working,

how things could be more interesting.

They have this flexibility to move the story

in any direction they want.

[Friese] I might see a prop in the background

that art department put there.

For example, in Ramiro and Ángel's cabin,

there is an old picture of a wolf and a lamb on the wall,

and that inspired me to actually write a dialogue

that kind of grasps those two characters.

[in Spanish] Why don't you have a little conversation with God?

Ask him why he turned you into a sheep

and me into a wolf.

The power of… of decisions here in the show

are very centralized in them, in Bo and Jantje,

and I think that's really good.

It adds a lot of personality, their personality.

[man] It's still the mind of Bo and Jantje.

They didn't step away from what they want and what they like.

They like weirdness.

They like fantasies.

They like mystery.

They like fucking with your mind.

And that's what they do. Even with us sometimes, actors.

We were like, "We wanna ask about season two for our characters."

They were like, "No! You do season one, and then you'll see."

[Barnard] When you go into a scene,

and you've got 100 questions for Bo,

and he goes, "I haven't made that choice yet."

"I don't know if I want this character to go down that road or that one yet."

"So let's see where we take it where you don't know."

"Yeah, okay, great."

"That's really helpful."

But, you know, that's the… that is the interesting thing about it.

In that moment, you have to make a natural choice of the circumstances…

[Eyk grunts]

[Barnard] …and play that and play the honesty of the moment,

regardless of where it's going next.

Maura, please.

[Maura] Get in there.

[Henry] I know all of this

must be quite confusing for you.

[Lesser] You feel a safety in the hands of people who have this pedigree.

They've done this amazing series before.

And yet you feel they are operating in a very free way.

And the way it starts out may be the way it continues or it may not.

I've not come across that a lot in modern drama.

The key.

[quirky music playing]

[porter] Everyone, please assemble in the dining room.

The captain would like to address the current situation.

What's happening?

They're not telling us a thing.

That's what you get when you have a German running this.

I don't know if it's similar because I've never been a captain on a ship, um,

but I guess it's maybe as exhausting.

[Ling Yi] Olek!

[Odar] If you wanna have family on the set,

then you also have to create a safe place for everyone,

and especially for the actors because you ask so much from them

to do in front of a camera, almost being naked.

[Maura screaming]

[inquisitive music playing]

He's a very dark soul. [chuckles]

Which is very cool.

He's not afraid of the ugliness or…

the deep dark secrets

or sorrow or grief

or… just all the dark sides that humans have.

And I just love to have a director who wanna go in there.

[Barnard] I'm not good if I don't trust the director.

And if a director doesn't make me feel like I can go to places

which are very vulnerable,

I can't give you my all.

I feel comfortable enough to explore what the possibilities are because of Bo.

And that's a good captain, to make you feel safe

in a very vulnerable place.

Him and Jantje, they both know what they want.

Sometimes they don't know how they wanna get there.

Then you're a part of that creative team, so you help them get there.

And there's a great essence of family because of that.

[emotional string music playing]

It's been such a journey. I get so emotional.

People here are amazing.

I met actors from all over the world with different cultures.

I hope that people see that no matter where you're from,

no matter your skin tone, no matter your religion,

we're just equal, we're just all just human beings.

It is the same hurt, love, and happiness.

We're on the same boat.

You're looking for what you have in common and you try to build up a synergy

to create together, and that's what we're doing here internationally.

Especially during our time, with COVID and Brexit,

and everyone wants to become way more selfish

than they probably already were.

It's just great just to see that we're all together.

And this is the beautiful story about 1899.

If you actually wanna survive, we have to be together.

No one can survive on their own.

[Odar] I will definitely fall into a hole

after the end of this shoot.

You always do.

'Cause I really…

No one sees me behind my monitors in my tent,

but I do, uh, live the characters as well.

And I do act in front of the monitors. No one sees that.

Just to try to understand what that character could do or not.

Of course, in a very bad way because I'm not a good actor.

But, like, I really live these characters,

and it's sad always to say goodbye to them.

But maybe hopefully we will say hello again to them in another season.

This is where they shot Alien.

- [man] Oh, wow. - Yeah.

So it has good history.

[Odar sighs heavily]

Thank you, sir.

[Bill] You're welcome, sir.

Hello.

- [Beecham] Hello. - [Wagner] Hello there.

[in German] It is of course a bit of an undercut, as we had discussed.

[Odar] Yeah.

[in English] How are you feeling?

[Beecham] Yeah. It's growing on me. I like it.

[Odar] It looks pretty cool.

- [Odar] Hello. - [makeup artist] Hello.

- [Odar] Ah! Now you're a footballer? - [Pietschmann] I'm a footballer.

Where is your beard?

Yeah, man.

- See ya in a minute. See you. - [makeup artist] See you.

Yeah.

[suspenseful music building]

[in German] Then we'll go…

- [in English] It looks pretty amazing. - Yeah.

And we have to fit all the actors in.

Actually, let's start with the people in the pods.

Jérôme, Clémence, Virginia, Eyk,

Maura, Krester,

Tove, and Olek.

[evocative vocalizations reverberate]

[Odar] Get used to it.

This is season two,

just like this.

- In this box? - But beautiful dialogues.

Yeah, beautiful. It's so well written.

[woman] Okay, let's stand by to shoot.

Rolling sound.

And action.

[high-pitched, mysterious tones play]

[audio warbles disconcertingly]

[Odar] The ring. The ring.

- Cut. Very good. Moving on. - [woman] Cut. And cut.

[Odar] Good news. It looks awesome.

[crew cheering]

[brooding synth music playing]

Then at the end, your head as straight as possible.

'Cause you're going into…

[laughter]

[indistinct chatter]

[Odar] I want to wrap.

- [woman] Aw, so sweet. - [Odar] "With love."

And now my postcard. Thank you.

[Odar] There. Where's the champagne?

Everyone, we're super quiet 'cause it's the last one on the cast.

1899.

[Odar] Boom!

If this isn't iconic…

And…

action!

- [glitchy audio burst] - [machinery powering down]

[low, disconcerting music plays]

Cut!

That's a wrap!

[cast and crew clapping, cheering]

So guys, it was a pleasure and honor working with you.

You're a fantastic cast.

I thank you from the bottom of my heart.

It was a hell of a ride,

hell of a cast, hell of characters,

hell of everything.

I love you all, really. Really.

Thank you. Thank you very much.

[applause, cheering continue]

[man] Well done.

Bo, from all the cast, this is a little gift.

There you go. It's for you.

[Odar] This is awesome!

[woman] I want this picture.

[Odar] This is amazing. Thank you very much.