Swedish actress Marie Richardson stars in the new Swedish crime drama Before We Die, which has begun filming in Stockholm and might very well screen in the US and/or UK.
The award-winning Marie Richardson is no stranger to our telly screens. She’s costarred with her husband, Jakob Eklund, in every episode of Johan Falk, appeared in both series of Verdict: Revised (Oskyldigt dömd) alongside Mikael Persbrandt, and featured in episodes of The Inspector and the Sea (Der Kommissar und das Meer), Maria Wern, and Beck.
Viewers on both sides of the pond will be able to see her (relatively) soon in the Swedish political thriller/mystery Blue Eyes (Blå ögon), when it premieres on MHz Choice in the US and Walter Presents in the UK.
In Before We Die (Innan Vi Dör), Richardson stars as Hanna, a fading star of a cop in the organized crime unit of the Stockholm Police. On the home front, her son has severed all ties with her, as she’s the one who caused his arrest and subsequent two-year imprisonment for drug possession.
When her lover and colleague is abducted, Hanna must take over his undercover investigation of a criminal biker gang as well as protect an infiltrator. To prevent a brutal takeover in the criminal underworld, she must fight for her son’s life and break another family to save her own.
Said Richardson about the new series in an interview with Swedish broadcaster SVT:
“I think it’s a very exciting thriller in ten parts. Hanna is a cop who has very high morals. Her morals are so high that she even brought her son in on drug charges. I think this is interesting, I became curious about Hanna from this perspective. But Hanna is also exposed to many situations in the series, where she has to manage both her professional role and her private feelings, especially because her lover is kidnapped.”
Unlike for her previous roles, Richardson has been training with weapons for Before We Die. As for doing stunt scenes herself, she said:
“We haven’t gone through how dangerous it is, we’ll see what they think. But I hope to do as much as possible before they say it is too dangerous. I would love to do anything, except to be drowned in cold lakes in winter.”
Playing Hanna’s son is Adam Pålsson (The Bridge, Arne Dahl), and Alexej Manvelov (Beck, Occupied) plays Sven, Hanna’s lover.
Before We Die reunites Richardson with Pålsson as well as with series producer Maria Nordenberg (Death of a Pilgrim), director Simon Kaijser (The Half Hidden), and cinematographer Stefan Kullänger (The Fourth Man), all of whom worked together on the miniseries Don’t Ever Wipe Tears Without Gloves.
“It will be great to work together again. I’m really charged. I acted with Adam in Don’t Ever Wipe Tears Without Gloves and was his mother in the series, although we never really met in any scenes.
“I worked with both Simon and Stefan in the [Jonas] Gardell series The Half Hidden and then also in Don’t Ever Wipe Tears Without Gloves. The third time’s the charm now. It’s nice that there are two [shows] you feel good about and it’s been a great cooperative effort.”
Written by Niklas Rockström (Thicker than Water) and Wilhelm Behrman (Four More Years), Before We Die is produced by Nordenberg and Fredrik Heining (King of Devil’s Island) for B-Reel, in co-production with SVT, ZDF, and Stockholm Film Region-Mälardalen / Film Capital Stockholm.
ZDF Enterprises, which handles worldwide sales for Arne Dahl, Blue Eyes, The Bridge, and many other Euro TV titles, will do the same for this series. Fingers crossed that US and UK programmers pick up Before We Die as they have done with others of the ZDFE-repped shows.
Before We Die is currently slated to premiere on SVT1 in the spring of 2017.
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