Kvensler: “We did not want to shove a history lesson down people’s throats”

Who first came up with the idea for The Restaurant and what was your reaction when you read the first pitch?
Ulf Kvensler: I started working on the series four years ago. The idea came from Johan Rosenlind who himself worked in the restaurant business in the 1970s-80s, so he’s very familiar with this environment. When I read the first pitch I was thrilled. It was a very ambitious project about a restaurant, a family, spanning several decades, and SVT wanted to turn it into a show describing the development of the Swedish welfare state.

How is the storyline structured over the long timeline that stretches from 1945 until the 1970s?
UK: The idea from the start was to create a family saga covering about three decades, so we had to move forward pretty fast. Season 1 goes from 1945 to 1950, season 2 from 1955 to 1962, and we hope to do a season 3 that will go up to the mid-1970s. Instead of moving for example one year for each episode, we made longer time jumps within and between the seasons. So we have maybe 5-6 episodes that play out during a couple of months. Then we do jumps up to five years in time.

Being able to follow the characters over such a long period is what I loved about the project. Usually you get this long storytelling in novels, rarely with drama series. But this large spread over several decades was tremendously challenging. When you move in time, you don’t want people to feel that when five years have passed, what happens in that episode could very well have happened after a week, and you don’t want to leave the audience behind. The first episode after the time jump is always the hardest to nail down.

Considering the high financial stakes for SVT and Viaplay, did you write the storyline in such a way that it would appeal to audiences across various demographics?
UK: First of all, we wanted to attract a wide audience and not shove a history lesson down people’s throats. We knew that with a period drama, we would attract SVT’s typical mature audience. But we wanted to catch younger viewers as well. So we introduced younger characters, such as the kitchen boy Calle.

I used as inspiration the true story of Swedish restaurant legend and father of Swedish cuisine Tore Wretman. He starts as a kitchen boy in the 1930s and built a restaurant empire in Sweden. We also developed a kind of Romeo and Juliette love story between him and Nina Löwander. She wasn’t in the original script and I introduced her, as well as a young waitress who has left her illegitimate child in the countryside because she couldn’t raise him. All these young characters have heroic journeys and move upwards in society. That’s a way to show how the political reforms and social welfare in Sweden offered opportunities for many people.

We were also very careful to create as many strong female characters as male characters. We took it to the level where we actually counted lines spoken by female and male characters!

Did you do a lot of research to remain truthful to the period?
UK: I knew a lot about that era because I had read Olaf Palme’s biography and books about how the welfare state came to be. But I didn’t know much about the restaurant business. So together with Malin Nevander (co-creator of the show) and Johan Roselind we read a lot and shared our knowledge. Then of course Johan used his own restaurant experience.

How did you work in the writers’ room?
UK: We create the basic structure for the entire season in a writers’ room over a six-week period approximately. We shape together the through lines and basic arcs for the characters, then we break down those arcs for each episode and each episode in a number of beats. Then we split up and each of us works on a specific episode. We discuss again the storylines, treatments and different scripts and I then write the final version and hone the dialogue.

How was your collaboration with SVT, Viaplay, your producer Susann Billberg-Rydholm (Jarowskij) and director Harald Hamrell?
UK: We had an on-going dialogue with all our financiers, and mostly with SVT. When you have a major show like this, with so many different themes and stories across 20+ episodes, you need outside eyes to comment on the content and tone. I had already worked with Harald Hamrell on the mini-series Om Stig Petrés Hemlighet that won a Kristallen prize in 2005, so we were used to working together.

Were you also involved in the casting?
UK: Yes I was because when the show was cast, we had only a few scripts ready. For the main characters, actors should be able to deliver different emotions. In the casting, we wanted them to play three different scenes, so I wrote them specifically for the casting sessions. But Harald and SVT took the final decision on the cast.

Were you inspired by Downton Abbey for the upstairs/downstairs class divide, or Krøniken/Better Times for the family saga and time frame?
UK: Yes those were the two big inspirations. SVT wanted to do this show because they hoped to match DR’s phenomenal success with Krøniken. I also love Downton Abbey, especially the first three seasons.

What were the biggest challenges that you had to overcome to make the show relevant to today’s audiences. I’m thinking of the language issue in particular…
UK: Yes language was a major challenge. You can’t have the characters speak the way they did in the 1940s, but they can’t use modern day language either. So we had to find a kind of neutral ground. We had a reading before we started shooting the first four episodes with the entire cast. That was a good test with what sounded true and what didn’t. Harald has often said that you have to stay true to the written words. When you do modern drama, actors add small words, work with the lines to make them fit their own way of speaking. But you can’t do that with period drama so actors have to stick to the written words.

What’s the status with season 2 and will there be a season 3?
UK: Season 2 is already shot and in the editing room. It is scheduled to air on SVT in the fall 2018 and we’re currently developing season 3. We will go ahead if the ratings are good.

You’ve worked in TV drama for almost two decades on hugely successful shows such as  Solsidan, Welcome to Sweden, Black Lake. What do you think of today’s golden age of TV drama and how different is your way of working today compared to a decade ago?
UK: The difference is mostly that there are many more potential buyers. In the wake of successes such as Bron (The Bridge), it’s easier for many Scandinavian shows to travel and the international community turns to our region for great storytelling. However, I don’t think this golden age will last forever. I believe the new streaming services - Netflix, Viaplay, HBO Nordic etc - will have to slow down and the Nordic wave will settle down. Personally, I work the same way that I’ve done for the last 15 years. I’ve worked in writers’ rooms non-stop, going from one project to the next, except for some shorter periods where I directed. When you get to work on a project such as Vår tid är nu, you feel blessed.

What are your favourite shows and those that you’ve binge watched recently (including Scandinavian)?
UK: Actually I do not binge watch! I have kids with a lot of extra curricular activities. But among my favourite shows are Big Little Lies, Game of Thrones, the comedy Silicon Valley, and the dramatisation of the O.J. Simpson case, The People vs O.J. Simpson. I thought it was absolutely brilliant. Among Scandinavian shows, I enjoyed Borgen and most recently Bonusfamiljen.