Reykjavík Grapevine - Oct 2021, Page 9

9 The Reykjavík Grapevine
Issue 10— 2021
The similarities of storytelling through
music and television gave Gu!rún a soft place
to land. While her first album focused on
emotions and aspects of her personal life, she
set out to tell a story with her second album.
“I wanted to create an atmosphere where you
would listen to the song and see it in front
of you,” she explains. “It's always about love,
but it's put into this costume of a story. I was
trying to paint a picture for someone to inter-
pret into their own life and emotions. I feel
as though my music and this show are like a
mirror.”
When it came time to don the role of
Gríma in the ashen landscape of Kalta, inter-
preting emotions came as second nature.
Gu!rún shares, “The first day I was kind of
stressed because I didn't know if I was going
to see the cameras and become all stiff. I was
worried if it was going to work. Then, as soon
as we started, I realised that it's kind of the
same as being on stage, performing music for
a live crowd, because you're just trying to get
your emotions to the audience.”
“When you're acting, you have this
emotion and you’re just trying to deliver it to
the camera so you kind of forget everything
that's around you. It’s just so pure. I think
that the reason it went so well is because of
my music experience. I’ve been performing
music on stage since I was five years old. It’s
really similar but at the same time, it’s really
different—I realized I could use so many
things I’d learned through performing music
and apply them to acting.”
“It’s like performing a cover of a song that
really resonates with you, and the things that
are being told are not your story but you’re
trying to perform it as if it is your story.
When I was doing the part of Gríma, I tried
to find the things that were alike between us,
like she’s really proud and strong. She doesn’t
have any attitude, but she really goes for
things and she gets stuff done. I know that
feeling, so I was like, ‘you go, girl!’ On the
other hand, when I found things that were
different, I would try to dig deep into those
things to understand the core of it and apply
it to myself.”
Goading Grief

So much of the series is centered on grief—
not only personal grief, but the trauma of an
entire community. Gu!rún took such care to
research the experience of trauma and what
it does to a person that she often had restless
nights, dreaming of traumatic events that
left her unable to sleep.
“You watch the show and it’s so much
about the personal journey. It really makes
you wonder, ‘if everything you wish for would
come true, is it really what you wanted?’ Or
do you need to look inside of yourself and try
to understand how you can move forward. It's
like a sci-fi show, but in the end it really gets
you thinking about ourselves as people, our
community and the trauma in our lives.”
“It’s so funny to think of the contrast
between the first day of shooting and the last
because the difference is gigantic. It was like
I got an acting crash course. I feel like there
was a point where it clicked and I just kept
growing and growing and growing. I think
“I didn’t realize that it could
actually happen—to be a
musician like this, but I’m so
thankful for it. I just stumbled
upon the right self in life.”
“I always want to try some-
thing new and expand myself
as an artist. I don’t want to
get stuck in one place just
because it's selling.”
there’s nothing more rewarding as an artist
than when you feel this growth.”
When asked if the eruption of Fagradals-
fjall on March 19th, just three months before
the release of Katla, felt like the greatest
teaser trailer of all time, Gu!rún shared “It
felt like the best PR move ever. It's not an
eruption that's dangerous, it's just pretty so
we were like, ‘wow, this is meant to be.’”
Industry Equality
In 2017, the landscape of many industries,
especially in entertainment, began shifting
with the virality of the #metoo movement.
Gu!rún entered the scene in the midst of
all this. Simultaneously she noticed the
vast presence of men in the industry and
an underrepresentation of women and non-
binary people. Luckily, she felt the public was
ready for a dynamic shift.
“People were happy to see a young woman
unafraid of expressing herself in this way.
Now there's so many young women that have
so much talent who are stepping up at the
moment,” she shares. Gu!rún credits Ragga
Gísla, Birgitta Haukdal and Sigrí!ur Thor-
lacius, among other female Icelandic musi-
cians, as inspiring her to believe she had this
potential from a young age. “I hope I’m help-
ing to pave the way for other women.”
“It's so important to have women and
non-binary people in the music industry to
show people who have dreams that this is
possible, that you can step up. I want people
to think, ‘If they can do it, I can do it.’”
Covid And Community
Gu!rún speaks with such infectious positiv-
ity, it’s easy to forget that we’re in the midst
of a pandemic—but she doesn’t shy away
from its impact on her. “Of course living
through the pandemic is hard but I don’t
think I would’ve had this growth as a person
without this experience. I think a lot of
people feel this way,” she muses, “ Everything
stopped and we were kind of forced to look
at our lives and reconsider things. A lot of
people are always looking at the future, one
step ahead of themselves, and Covid forced
us all to live more in the moment.”
“People realised they needed change—for
themselves and for their communities—and
the time is now, you can’t wait for the future
to happen. With movements like Black Lives
Matter, we’re all realising we have to make
changes now. So of course, Covid has been
devastating but if you want to be super posi-
tive, you can take away so many good things
from this time.”
Inspiration Abounds
“It’s been a bit hard trying to record another
album. For the longest time, having written
an album but being unable to perform it felt
like I’d walked through a door but that door
was still open behind me. I was so proud of
this album, but I hadn’t closed the door on it
yet,” she shares.

ing gigs were cancelled. In terrible irony, the
album had been recorded with as many live
instruments as possible—an attempt to be
able to offer live shows as true-to-sound as
the songs fans streamed at home. Now the
potential for live shows has disappeared. She
equated the experience to walking through
a door but not being able to close it behind
you. While the future of live music hung in
the balance, Gu!rún sought out positivity
wherever it sprouted.
Making Music, Making Moves

Gu!rún credits her smooth transition from
music to television to her performance in the
National Theatre of Iceland’s 2019 produc-
tion of ‘Shakespeare in Love.’ Not only was
the play’s director, Selma Björnsdóttir, also
casting director for Katla—the experience
itself introduced Gu!rún to the acting world
through music. “I was on the side playing
violin the whole time and I would occasion-
ally come out to sing,” she says, “I was really
comfortable. I got to kind of dip my toes into
this whole world without diving into it.”
One day Selma reached out about a
Netflix show she was scouting for Baltasar
Kormákur. “At first I thought, ‘I'm not an
actress’ but then I realized I have nothing to
lose. If I get the part, which I really want, it’s
going to be incredible. If not, then it’s amaz-
ing they wanted me to audition at all.”
She recalls, “I was so stressed about the
audition, I decided to dress in all black so they
wouldn't see if I was sweating. And honestly,
I don't really remember how it went, I just
kind of blacked out.” Luckily, her nerves
didn’t show and she was offered the lead role
of Gríma after reading with Íris Tanja Flygen-
ring, the actress who would come to portray
her sister Ása in the show.
Capturing Katla
Filming began for the Netflix sci-fi series in
February 2020, and the cataclysmic downturn
in Icelandic tourism in the early days of the
pandemic actually worked out well for shoot-
ing. “It was pretty amazing because most of
the story happens in Vík, which is usually a
tourist place, but it was just empty. The series
is supposed to happen where everyone has
moved out of the town, so it was just perfect.”