Yahoo News ‘Banshee’ Alumnus Ulrich Thomsen Takes on ‘Cancel Culture,’ Post #MeToo World in ‘Sugar’ (EXCLUSIVE)
Danish actor Ulrich Thomsen will direct “Sugar,” dealing with “cancel culture,” the post #MeToo world and sugar-dating.
“It’s a love story. It’s about people’s loneliness but, apparently, I shouldn’t be telling a story about two girls. It’s a strange thing to deal with, artistically. Pisses me off,” he said.
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“I am a fucking boomer, which must mean I am an idiot. And the only thing I did wrong is that I’ve aged.”
Thomsen, currently on the jury at Monte-Carlo Television Festival, will play a small part in the film alongside his daughter. He is planning to shoot early next year.
“Its logline is: ‘Everybody’s greatest weakness is their desire for pleasure.’ And for money! That’s true, still to this day, and it will fuck with everything. Would Weinstein continue on for so long if he didn’t have anything to sell?”
As for the potential haters, he will just shake them off.
“The moment you address these things, it’s ‘controversial.’ That’s ridiculous! [With #MeToo] there was a correction needed, that’s obvious, but the bar hasn’t been set right. When it becomes too much, who’s going to say anything?”
“People are lonelier now than ever before. They wonder: ‘What can I say? What constitutes a micro-aggression?’ And then you have highly sexualized music videos or rape fantasy in ‘Fifty Shades of Grey,’ and somehow that’s fine.”
Thomsen admitted some of the questions he’s planning to pose are “difficult.”
“I’ve interviewed a lot of people, also the ones engaging in sugar-dating. It’s so old-fashioned, but some girls say: ‘My body, my life.’ They put up content online and negotiate with guys who look for something that’s not there anymore,” he observed.
“It’s important to talk about these things because we don’t know the rules anymore. We used to be able to have a discussion, but the so-called ‘woke’ agenda, for the lack of a better word, is very black-and-white.”
“In Denmark, it’s still not as bad as in the U.S., but I did an interview recently and someone called this topic a ‘hornet’s nest.’ But who am I against? Give me a name. Who am I supposed to be afraid of?! No one can ever answer that. It’s chaos.”
Thomsen started to work on international projects following the success of Thomas Vinterberg’s “The Celebration.”
“It was an opportunity and I grabbed it, and then I got Bond. ‘The World Is Not Enough’ was my first foreign film. So, a good start. Any actor, at one point, has rehearsed their Oscar speech. You would look at De Niro and this whole generation, and you wanted to be a part of it. For a Danish actor, it was a wet dream. I met De Niro once, during a casting. I didn’t get a job.”
What he did get, however, was “Banshee” – a crime series created by Jonathan Tropper and David Schickler.
“By then, I’d already made a name for myself and someone told the showrunner: ‘This is a guy you want to work with.’ With ‘Banshee,’ people followed that for four years – of course you become their buddy. They watch the show and they think they know you. I have that with Ricky Gervais. I think he is a genius. Once, I was walking right next to him, wondering: ‘Should I just tap his shoulder?,’” he recalled.
“Listen, I am old enough to remember that back in the day, TV shows were regarded as ‘lesser’ productions. They were quicker, cheap. Then, it has shifted. So much money is being put into them now and it just attracts people.”
Since then, he has appeared on “The Blacklist,” “The New Pope” and “Shining Girls” with Elisabeth Moss.
“It’s hard to predict success. I think what the shows are struggling with [these days] is finding an original storyline. ‘He’s a real estate agent… But on Mars.’ Really?! Luckily, people die, and the young ones don’t remember them anymore. They don’t even know who Hitler was,” he shrugged.
“What you can do, in terms of art, is to make something that’s current. There is always another side to the story and I am always interested in that. That’s my problem and it will be the death of me.”
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