Anders Ølholm talks about first Danish Amazon Original series ‘Snake Killer’

It is a “privilege” for filmmaker Anders Ølholm to helm Amazon MGM Studios’ first Danish original series, “Snake Killer,” released today on Prime Video. Inspired by real-life events, the four-episode crime thriller follows the work of Denmark’s infamous Uropatruljen, a police unit active between 1965 and 2001 dedicated to curbing drug dealers and gangs in the sprawling capital Copenhagen. Snake Killer stars Pilou Asbæk (Game of Thrones) as the controversial officer Brian ‘Smiley’ Petersen, with a large cast including Lars Ranthe (Another Round), Mira Obling (Dark Horse), Joey Moe (Fugleflugten) and Ali Al-Bayate (Sommerdahl).

Ølholm was already well acquainted with the world of Danish police, having directed ‘Shorta’ in 2020. Co-directed by Frederik Louis Hviid, the thriller follows two cops who find themselves trapped in a fictional Copenhagen neighborhood once news breaks that a young foreigner died while in police custody. The film premiered at the Venice Film Festival and went on to a successful festival run, eventually being picked up by Magnolia Pictures for North America.

‘Snake Killer’, however, was a completely different challenge. Speak with Variety Ahead of the show’s release, the director said “not much was known” about the infamous Uropatruljen. “I always wanted to pierce this hermetically sealed world to try to write a project, but I couldn’t get in.”

When former Uropatruljen officer René Dahl Andersen contacted Ølholm’s production company to say he was interested in working on a project about his time in the unit, it felt like fate. “At first it seemed too good to be true,” says the helmsman. “But we met, and he was a very jovial, outgoing guy, with these incredible stories. Eventually I started meeting some of his old colleagues and informants, and walking through his old stomping grounds. Slowly but surely it dawned on me that he was the real deal and my gateway into that world.”

At the time the two first met, Dahl Andersen was working on the book that would eventually become “Hærdet” (“Hardened” in literal translation). The Danish bestseller collects the former buyer’s stories about his time wandering the streets of Copenhagen, and has also contributed to the show’s information. “What fascinated me was the idea that if you want to be successful in that environment, you have to be very outgoing and have a lot of social intelligence and empathy,” adds Ølholm.

“This particular unit was painted almost like a Neanderthal, and I realized it was much more nuanced and had a very complex human aspect to it,” he says. Ultimately, Dahl Andersen involved former colleagues in the project, with several former Uropatruljen agents playing versions of themselves in the show alongside former drug dealers and petty criminals, a fact that the creator says increased the “authenticity” of “Snake Killer.”

It took six years for Ølholm to get the project off the ground. Commenting on the fact that it is the first-ever Amazon original series in Denmark, the director says working with the major streamer was a “gift from heaven.” “I had a lot of doors closed and was almost ready to move on when I heard that Amazon might be interested in doing projects in Denmark. I pitched them and was completely stunned by their immediate positive response.”

“Working with Amazon felt like a unique experience,” he continues. “I’d heard horror stories about working with big streamers in terms of creative control, but that wasn’t my experience at all. I was prepared to have to tone down some elements, but from the start they really understood the project and let me make the project I wanted to make.”

Has working with a global player, and therefore targeting an international audience, changed the series in any way? Ølholm says it only reinforced his desire to combine Danish social realism with American genre films, especially classic cop killers like “Serpico,” “The French Connection” and “Training Day.” “I wanted to drink from that fountain while being rooted in Danish culture and specifically in this neighborhood of Copenhagen. We filmed in real locations, in a real police station and a real motel, so the show is very rooted in our culture and reality, but made with familiar mechanisms from classic American police cinema.”

Another element that secured the making of “Snake Killer” was star Asbæk, an old friend of Ølholm. “He is one of the few actors in Denmark who can actually get the green light for a project,” the director emphasizes. “He has played very diverse characters in America and internationally, but in terms of Danish fiction he is known more for his empathetic, gentle public persona. I think he was intrigued to play a character so far removed from who he is as a person. Once I got him on board, he was an extraordinary resource. He is really there for you and the other actors, and without a name like his we couldn’t have made this project.”

With all four episodes releasing simultaneously on Prime Video, are there any future plans for the series? Not yet, says the maker. “At one point the show was nine episodes long. That alone gives me a lot of material to get into. But I have to make the show I wanted to make. If there’s more, great, but if it doesn’t happen, I’m so glad I got the chance to make the first season.”

After the release of ‘Snake Killer’, Ølholm is gearing up to shoot a new long-term passion project, a feature film called ‘The Plan’, based on the Danish bestseller of the same name by Morten Pape. The director says the film is ‘Do The Right Thing’ and ‘This is England’. ‘It tells the story of a young boy growing up in a very well-known housing complex called Finger Plan, but it’s called The Plan. It’s exciting to do something that’s not as genre-heavy as what I’ve done before,” he adds.