Christian Vit on ruling and duelling in season three of ‘Vikings: Valhalla’

Italian-born Christian Vit is known for his roles in ‘Game of Thrones’, ‘FBI’, ‘FBI International’ and the long-running BBC medical drama ‘Holby City’ – he played Dr Matteo Rossini, who showed up to his first hospital shift on horseback! Now he’s appearing in a recurring role as The Emir in season 3 of Netflix’s ‘Vikings: Valhalla’. The Emir is the honourable but fierce ruler of the Arab empire whose fortress in Sicily is under siege by the Byzantines, led by Emperor Romanos.

The show is the spinoff of the ‘Vikings’ series, set 100 years after those events. It follows a new set of historical figures as they fight for political and religious dominance in early 11th-century Europe. The previous two seasons were very well-received and successful, among the top-10 viewed shows on Netflix for weeks. So there was great excitement about season 3 and immediately after its release it entered Netflix’s top 10-ranking shows too.

Christian said that the shoot was “absolutely fantastic”, adding: “I can’t give enough thanks to all the cast and crew who were involved for making this such a memorable experience for me. Playing the role of The Emir presented some challenges from the beginning, including the language: I had to deliver my first lines in classical Arabic and then I had to find an Arabic accent for speaking in English. This took quite a bit of research and rehearsal.”

His character The Emir fights in the first big duel of the series against Harald Sigurdsoon (Leo Suter). Christian said: “I was really impressed when the whole fight sequence was shown to me, performed by professional stuntmen. The problem was that I had to perform it and not them!

“But I trusted the process. I put myself in the hands of the instructors and after two weeks’ training I arrived on set in a condition I would never have expected. I felt absolutely solid and confident with the fighting sequence so that I could just focus on my acting and living the scene at its fullest. That was definitely the most challenging part of the show for me. But playing opposite Leo, who was such a great scene partner and generous actor, helped a lot and made things even more fun.”

Christian has been keeping busy outside of ‘Vikings’, too. Later this year, just before Halloween, Christian will star in the horror film ‘Behave’. He said: “The movie has elements of horror and slasher – it was the first time for me exploring that genre, which seems to be more and more popular. I had a lot of fun playing my role, which is quite dark, and I had to use a different accent too. I’m really looking forward to it being released.”

‘Vikings: Valhalla’ has just been released on Netflix