Robert Eggers On The Northman: "When You're Making Creative Work, You're Trying To Share What It Is To Be Human"

thegamer.com:

"Entertainment is sort of my fifth or fifteenth priority with the first two [movies]," Robert Eggers tells me with a laugh. The Northman, his new movie which hits cinemas April 15, is a grand departure from the smaller, isolated tales of The Witch and The Lighthouse. While they were slow-burning, creepy dramas that often defied interpretation, The Northman is a bona fide action flick. Though Eggers' distinctive style is still clear to see, The Northman feels like an experiment in what might happen if you give a visionary indie director a $90 million budget and see what he comes up with. "When you're making creative work, you're trying to share what it is to be a human being with other human beings. So the challenge of trying to make a movie that I could share with a lot more people and still be myself was something that I was very curious to see if I could accomplish, and we'll see if the experiment comes off."

As I note in my review of The Northman, it feels like a rousing success. Despite the growth in scope and cast, it feels as though The Northman slots in perfectly with The Witch and The Lighthouse, and the 'Eggerness' of the movie has not been lost even as more action is brought into the fray. But of course, I'm not the one who needs convincing. The Witch is up there with Get Out and Midsommar as one of my favourite horror movies of the 21st Century. The proof of The Northman's success will be in whether or not it convinces those who have not seen his previous offerings.

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Since Eggers' work trusts his audience and encourages them to find their own interpretation - I'm partial to the hallucinogenic corn theory in The Witch - I asked how he felt his attempt to go mainstream