March 1, 2025 • 12 mins
Danish actor Claes Bang has made a name for himself in projects like Bad Sisters, The Northman and Square - and now he's taking on a new type of role.
He's recently been spending time in New Zealand shooting the new period action film William Tell, alongside Jason Momoa and Dave Bautista.
He says the darker tone of the film was different compared to the 'romanticised' retellings of Tell's life story - and he was eager to get into the role.
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Speaker 1 (00:06):
You're listening to the Sunday Session podcast with Francesca Rudkin
from News Talks at B.
Speaker 2 (00:12):
Danish actor Clay's Bang is best known for TV show
Bad Sisters and films Northman and The Palm Door Winner
The Square. In his latest role, Clay's heads Back to
the fourteenth century is the legendary Swiss Smarkesman in the
star studded action epic William Tell.
Speaker 3 (00:29):
This is about our freedom, our fans. I leave them
naked and trembling before me.
Speaker 1 (00:40):
Fight for us.
Speaker 2 (00:43):
We will do it as wonder.
Speaker 1 (00:48):
Now it begins.
Speaker 2 (00:55):
Who are you? M Toe and clays Bang is with me? Now,
thank you so much for being with us.
Speaker 3 (01:02):
Good morning, good morning, and thank you for having me. So.
Speaker 2 (01:05):
I know that you've done a lot of period work before,
but how familiar were you with the fourteenth century crossbow
before working on this film?
Speaker 3 (01:15):
Well, with the crossbow, I was not familiar with that
thing at all. But I mean in terms of the story,
I think I probably knew what a lot of people
know that you know this, this this whole legend of
William Tell. And obviously what people know is that for
some odd reason he shoots an apple off his son's head.
(01:36):
But what I came to find was that I did
not actually know how he got himself into that situation.
I will be honest, and this is very embarrassing to admit,
but I perhaps thought that it was part of a
traveling circus where he was like traveling the countryside shooting
an apple off his son's headful money.
Speaker 2 (01:57):
I don't know. I'm laughing because I don't know. I
have no idea either. I don't think any of us
it no.
Speaker 3 (02:04):
So what do you know is that there's guy and
he's he's got a crossbow, and he's got a son,
and the son's got an apple on his head, and
now he shoots it off the sunset. And then it
turned out that it's actually a huge and quite complex
story of this guy being forced to do this in
order to save his son and his wife and himself
(02:25):
and his fellow countryman. And then it obviously started to
become very very interesting, I thought, because it's it's sort
of like a story of of you know, these people
not wanting to cave and not wanting to take the
knee and sort of you know, throwing out the aggressors
that are trying to take over their country, and I thought,
(02:48):
you know, that that whole dilemma moved into one situation,
into one character, and him now now faced with the
choice of do I now go and join the battle
or do I still stand here and do nothing. I
thought that was very, very interesting, and that's obviously when
I really, I really got interested in the project.
Speaker 2 (03:11):
You're absolutely right. It is a much darker tail than
the sort of the romantic legend that we have in
our minds of this man that shoots in an apple
off the top of his son's head. And as you
mentioned there, there's so much. There is actually so much
going on in this film. You've got the big picture
of the Swiss who have decided they've had enough of
being under the Austrian sort of oppression, and then you've
(03:35):
got all the personal dilemmas that William Tell has to
go through. So ratch a character, isn't it.
Speaker 3 (03:45):
That is obviously when I found out that this was
the whole thing of it, that is that's what really
attracted me to it. It is that is exactly what
it is. It's very rich and I thought, you know,
I thought the whole arc and the whole the story
of what he goes through I mean, we've given him
this backstory where he's he's been in battle in the
(04:06):
say it has now abandoned that whole thing, moved into
the country's up with his wife and child, and is
very very reluctant to go back into doing anything about
anything right. He just wants his peaceful life. So I
don't think it's it's I think it's both the fact
that he knows that battle will probably take away at
(04:26):
least half of the people he loves, which he sort
of says in that scene at the kitchen table in
the kitchen where he says, if we go and do this,
we will all die. And everybody is that that's in
that scene apart from himself, is not there at the
end of the movie. So he loses big time. And
I think one thing that he's also quite scared of,
(04:48):
and I think that's quite interesting, is that he does
not ever want to meet again the guy that he
becomes when he puts himself up for these things. I
think that he knows as a monster in there that
he does not want to unleash, and he does not
want to to meet that person ever again, and that
(05:10):
that I thought was quite interesting as well.
Speaker 2 (05:13):
I'm going to show my ignorance here. I know that
a lot of the stories that are associated with William
Teller written into folklore, but I don't I don't even
know if he was a real was he a real person?
Speaker 3 (05:24):
Oh, we know that that is and that is not
that's not ignorance at all. That is that is true.
It's not, I mean, because this is very much like
it's it's set exactly in the same day and age
as Braveheart, and Braveheart is a real story, and and
that guy has a grave. But William Tell is folklore.
There is is a legend. There is no Wilhelm Tell grave.
(05:48):
And you don't actually know which bits and bobs of
this story are from where it might be that the
whole thing has come together as a legend and is
like different stories that sort of like have have been
woeing into each other. And I think also for this,
the director and it can got really interested in the
whole story, and then he went back to the Schiller
(06:10):
play and he's taken a lot of inspiration from that,
and we've taken there's a lot of dialogue that we've
kept from that play, which gives it this sort of
like slightly Shakespearean heightened dialogue that I really feel works
well for the movie. The thing I thought we really
liked about that is it allows for a lot of
(06:33):
leeway because it is a legend, and as you just said,
it's not really that romantic, pretty picture. It is a
quite gruesome story. And it does not end well either,
does it. It's become quite dark, And I really like
that about it. I really like that we that we
never sort of went for them, went for that very
(06:55):
sort of pretty picture, romantic kind of folk hero it's
it's it's it's become something else. And I think we
also felt, you know, telling a story about an aggressor
trying to take over land, that is someone else's telling
that story. In this day and age, with the conflicts
that are happening around the world, I think we felt
(07:16):
the responsibility to not come up with a simplified story.
This is an anti war movie. This is like has
history not taught us anything? And will we never be
taught anything from history? Why the bloody hell do we
keep going on about these things when the outcome is
(07:37):
always devastation?
Speaker 2 (07:40):
Did the Swiss mind of Dane playing one of the eligends?
Speaker 3 (07:44):
I'm not entirely sure. I think we were at the
Zurig Film Festival with this. I got the impression that
there were people there that would have liked this to
have been a story with actors from Switzerland. Yeah, in
that sense, but I mean the Schiller play, that's a
German guy that wrote that. And I also feel that
(08:08):
with these massive legends, I mean, I know that this
takes place in what later on becomes Switzerland, but it's
such a massive European legend. I really really really hope
that they feel that we've done it justice and we've
worked well. But the fact that this is not historical,
(08:31):
this is a legend, I think that perhaps allows a
little room and I hope that they can live with
the fact that this is this is a Danish guy
playing their hero and in English.
Speaker 2 (08:45):
You know what I loved about this film is that
these days, so many hero films are superhero films, and
they create fantasy worlds and they use a lot of
cgi and things, and it felt like with this film
it was epic and we got back to more traditional filmmaking.
I mean, the scenery, the locations are amazing, you know,
(09:06):
the fighting, it all just felt you know, like there
was some comfort in going back to this kind of form.
Speaker 3 (09:12):
Of It feels like an old school kind of movie.
It feels like like one of those big cinema SCO
movies from like the fifties or sixties. It has that
kind of and I think it's also the pace of
the storytelling. And but trust me, there is a lot
of CGI in this because we did not release one
single bolt in this movie because that would have been deadly.
(09:35):
So all the all the arrows and balls that you
see flying through the air all the time, they're all CGI.
There is a lot of that. So but I think
in that sense the modern day way of of of
of using these digital technologies and in order to but
(09:58):
but but it's but it's really from sort of like
it's been used in a in a quite old fashioned
storytelling way. I feel. And I I'm I'm. When I
saw it the first time, I was like, wow, this
is very interesting. It feels like a movie from like
way back, like from the fifties or sixties or seventies.
I mean, and I think I think one review said
(10:22):
that they don't make them like this anymore, Like you
know that that thing you always say, and and and
I've and I really like that we that that and
it has that feel that it's gone back to It's
gone back to some some some of the old some
of the old ways of of of going about it.
(10:44):
And yeah, that's really.
Speaker 2 (10:46):
Cool, I think, Yeah, no, it's fabulous. Is it nice
to play a hero after being so excellent at playing
some pretty smammy villainous characters. I mean I just loved
you and bad Sisters and Northman of Churst, and I
love the Square quite a different side to you.
Speaker 3 (11:03):
Well, I mean this was I'll be honest and say
this was part of the attraction as well, that you
know that I got to to take on someone who
is a hero. I mean, I do think that what
we have here is sort of a probably a flawed
hero or still not like it is not like a
(11:23):
hero in like the superhero kind of movies. But but
I mean, at least it seems that this guy's moral
compass is like in the right place. And yes, it was.
It was kind of good because I was starting to
worry that that I would and I've sort of boxed
myself into a corner where I was only ever playing
(11:46):
like the really nasty ones. So yeah, that was part
of the attraction of it.
Speaker 2 (11:52):
Clay, so lovely to talk to you today. Thank you
so much for your time. That was Danish ector Clasping.
The film we've been talking about is his new action
epic William Tell, and it is in cinemas now.
Speaker 1 (12:05):
For more from the Soday session with Francesca Rudkin, listen
live to News Talks at B from nine am Sunday,
or follow the podcast on iHeartRadio.
You're listening to the Sunday Session podcast with Francesca Rudkin
from News Talks at B.
Speaker 2 (00:12):
Danish actor Clay's Bang is best known for TV show
Bad Sisters and films Northman and The Palm Door Winner
The Square. In his latest role, Clay's heads Back to
the fourteenth century is the legendary Swiss Smarkesman in the
star studded action epic William Tell.
Speaker 3 (00:29):
This is about our freedom, our fans. I leave them
naked and trembling before me.
Speaker 1 (00:40):
Fight for us.
Speaker 2 (00:43):
We will do it as wonder.
Speaker 1 (00:48):
Now it begins.
Speaker 2 (00:55):
Who are you? M Toe and clays Bang is with me? Now,
thank you so much for being with us.
Speaker 3 (01:02):
Good morning, good morning, and thank you for having me. So.
Speaker 2 (01:05):
I know that you've done a lot of period work before,
but how familiar were you with the fourteenth century crossbow
before working on this film?
Speaker 3 (01:15):
Well, with the crossbow, I was not familiar with that
thing at all. But I mean in terms of the story,
I think I probably knew what a lot of people
know that you know this, this this whole legend of
William Tell. And obviously what people know is that for
some odd reason he shoots an apple off his son's head.
(01:36):
But what I came to find was that I did
not actually know how he got himself into that situation.
I will be honest, and this is very embarrassing to admit,
but I perhaps thought that it was part of a
traveling circus where he was like traveling the countryside shooting
an apple off his son's headful money.
Speaker 2 (01:57):
I don't know. I'm laughing because I don't know. I
have no idea either. I don't think any of us
it no.
Speaker 3 (02:04):
So what do you know is that there's guy and
he's he's got a crossbow, and he's got a son,
and the son's got an apple on his head, and
now he shoots it off the sunset. And then it
turned out that it's actually a huge and quite complex
story of this guy being forced to do this in
order to save his son and his wife and himself
(02:25):
and his fellow countryman. And then it obviously started to
become very very interesting, I thought, because it's it's sort
of like a story of of you know, these people
not wanting to cave and not wanting to take the
knee and sort of you know, throwing out the aggressors
that are trying to take over their country, and I thought,
(02:48):
you know, that that whole dilemma moved into one situation,
into one character, and him now now faced with the
choice of do I now go and join the battle
or do I still stand here and do nothing. I
thought that was very, very interesting, and that's obviously when
I really, I really got interested in the project.
Speaker 2 (03:11):
You're absolutely right. It is a much darker tail than
the sort of the romantic legend that we have in
our minds of this man that shoots in an apple
off the top of his son's head. And as you
mentioned there, there's so much. There is actually so much
going on in this film. You've got the big picture
of the Swiss who have decided they've had enough of
being under the Austrian sort of oppression, and then you've
(03:35):
got all the personal dilemmas that William Tell has to
go through. So ratch a character, isn't it.
Speaker 3 (03:45):
That is obviously when I found out that this was
the whole thing of it, that is that's what really
attracted me to it. It is that is exactly what
it is. It's very rich and I thought, you know,
I thought the whole arc and the whole the story
of what he goes through I mean, we've given him
this backstory where he's he's been in battle in the
(04:06):
say it has now abandoned that whole thing, moved into
the country's up with his wife and child, and is
very very reluctant to go back into doing anything about
anything right. He just wants his peaceful life. So I
don't think it's it's I think it's both the fact
that he knows that battle will probably take away at
(04:26):
least half of the people he loves, which he sort
of says in that scene at the kitchen table in
the kitchen where he says, if we go and do this,
we will all die. And everybody is that that's in
that scene apart from himself, is not there at the
end of the movie. So he loses big time. And
I think one thing that he's also quite scared of,
(04:48):
and I think that's quite interesting, is that he does
not ever want to meet again the guy that he
becomes when he puts himself up for these things. I
think that he knows as a monster in there that
he does not want to unleash, and he does not
want to to meet that person ever again, and that
(05:10):
that I thought was quite interesting as well.
Speaker 2 (05:13):
I'm going to show my ignorance here. I know that
a lot of the stories that are associated with William
Teller written into folklore, but I don't I don't even
know if he was a real was he a real person?
Speaker 3 (05:24):
Oh, we know that that is and that is not
that's not ignorance at all. That is that is true.
It's not, I mean, because this is very much like
it's it's set exactly in the same day and age
as Braveheart, and Braveheart is a real story, and and
that guy has a grave. But William Tell is folklore.
There is is a legend. There is no Wilhelm Tell grave.
(05:48):
And you don't actually know which bits and bobs of
this story are from where it might be that the
whole thing has come together as a legend and is
like different stories that sort of like have have been
woeing into each other. And I think also for this,
the director and it can got really interested in the
whole story, and then he went back to the Schiller
(06:10):
play and he's taken a lot of inspiration from that,
and we've taken there's a lot of dialogue that we've
kept from that play, which gives it this sort of
like slightly Shakespearean heightened dialogue that I really feel works
well for the movie. The thing I thought we really
liked about that is it allows for a lot of
(06:33):
leeway because it is a legend, and as you just said,
it's not really that romantic, pretty picture. It is a
quite gruesome story. And it does not end well either,
does it. It's become quite dark, And I really like
that about it. I really like that we that we
never sort of went for them, went for that very
(06:55):
sort of pretty picture, romantic kind of folk hero it's
it's it's it's become something else. And I think we
also felt, you know, telling a story about an aggressor
trying to take over land, that is someone else's telling
that story. In this day and age, with the conflicts
that are happening around the world, I think we felt
(07:16):
the responsibility to not come up with a simplified story.
This is an anti war movie. This is like has
history not taught us anything? And will we never be
taught anything from history? Why the bloody hell do we
keep going on about these things when the outcome is
(07:37):
always devastation?
Speaker 2 (07:40):
Did the Swiss mind of Dane playing one of the eligends?
Speaker 3 (07:44):
I'm not entirely sure. I think we were at the
Zurig Film Festival with this. I got the impression that
there were people there that would have liked this to
have been a story with actors from Switzerland. Yeah, in
that sense, but I mean the Schiller play, that's a
German guy that wrote that. And I also feel that
(08:08):
with these massive legends, I mean, I know that this
takes place in what later on becomes Switzerland, but it's
such a massive European legend. I really really really hope
that they feel that we've done it justice and we've
worked well. But the fact that this is not historical,
(08:31):
this is a legend, I think that perhaps allows a
little room and I hope that they can live with
the fact that this is this is a Danish guy
playing their hero and in English.
Speaker 2 (08:45):
You know what I loved about this film is that
these days, so many hero films are superhero films, and
they create fantasy worlds and they use a lot of
cgi and things, and it felt like with this film
it was epic and we got back to more traditional filmmaking.
I mean, the scenery, the locations are amazing, you know,
(09:06):
the fighting, it all just felt you know, like there
was some comfort in going back to this kind of form.
Speaker 3 (09:12):
Of It feels like an old school kind of movie.
It feels like like one of those big cinema SCO
movies from like the fifties or sixties. It has that
kind of and I think it's also the pace of
the storytelling. And but trust me, there is a lot
of CGI in this because we did not release one
single bolt in this movie because that would have been deadly.
(09:35):
So all the all the arrows and balls that you
see flying through the air all the time, they're all CGI.
There is a lot of that. So but I think
in that sense the modern day way of of of
of using these digital technologies and in order to but
(09:58):
but but it's but it's really from sort of like
it's been used in a in a quite old fashioned
storytelling way. I feel. And I I'm I'm. When I
saw it the first time, I was like, wow, this
is very interesting. It feels like a movie from like
way back, like from the fifties or sixties or seventies.
I mean, and I think I think one review said
(10:22):
that they don't make them like this anymore, Like you
know that that thing you always say, and and and
I've and I really like that we that that and
it has that feel that it's gone back to It's
gone back to some some some of the old some
of the old ways of of of going about it.
(10:44):
And yeah, that's really.
Speaker 2 (10:46):
Cool, I think, Yeah, no, it's fabulous. Is it nice
to play a hero after being so excellent at playing
some pretty smammy villainous characters. I mean I just loved
you and bad Sisters and Northman of Churst, and I
love the Square quite a different side to you.
Speaker 3 (11:03):
Well, I mean this was I'll be honest and say
this was part of the attraction as well, that you
know that I got to to take on someone who
is a hero. I mean, I do think that what
we have here is sort of a probably a flawed
hero or still not like it is not like a
(11:23):
hero in like the superhero kind of movies. But but
I mean, at least it seems that this guy's moral
compass is like in the right place. And yes, it was.
It was kind of good because I was starting to
worry that that I would and I've sort of boxed
myself into a corner where I was only ever playing
(11:46):
like the really nasty ones. So yeah, that was part
of the attraction of it.
Speaker 2 (11:52):
Clay, so lovely to talk to you today. Thank you
so much for your time. That was Danish ector Clasping.
The film we've been talking about is his new action
epic William Tell, and it is in cinemas now.
Speaker 1 (12:05):
For more from the Soday session with Francesca Rudkin, listen
live to News Talks at B from nine am Sunday,
or follow the podcast on iHeartRadio.
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