When Freydis Eriksdotter fights, she screams. It’s a very particular kind of scream, one that stands out from the macho-boy bellows also heard in the new Netflix series Vikings: Valhalla. When Freydis screams, it’s rabid and guttural, the raw shriek of a warrior who finally understands her own power. When Freydis screams, you feel it. 

“I think deep inside me, a thousand-year-old Viking woman spirit laid dormant,” Swedish actor Frida Gustavsson, who plays Freydis, tells Tudum. “I didn’t know I could sound like that.”

Freydis Screaming Her Head Off In 'Vikings: Valhalla' for 49 Seconds Straight

In Vikings: Valhalla, Freydis has plenty of reasons to scream. Soon after she and famed Viking brother Leif Eriksson (Sam Corlett) arrive in the fictional town of Kattegat, after a treacherous journey from Greenland, the fiercely pagan Freydis exacts revenge on a Christian Viking who’d brutally harmed her years before. These revelations about her past set off a series of events that turn Freydis from an outsider with an uncertain future into a skilled, deadly warrior who’s deeply respected by her community. 

“When we first meet Freydis, she’s a fighter, she’s a survivor — she’s not a trained, skilled warrior,” Gustavsson explains. “We worked a lot on finding the kind of movement pattern that was a bit more animalistic. It’s a bit more hunched over... more forward-leaning, kind of like a beast waiting to jump and attack.”

Gustavsson says that Freydis’s arc lends itself to how her training evolved for the role, both physically and mentally. Filming for Vikings: Valhalla was pushed back for months due to the pandemic, and Gustavsson used that time to start working with a personal trainer to strengthen her back, shoulders, and arms. When the cast and crew returned to Ireland to film, she worked with a stunt team to master footwork, hand-to-hand combat, knife fighting, and eventually, battling with a spear and shield. 

“The weight of the armor is quite intense, and you’re fighting with weapons that are heavy, and you fight for a long period of time,” she says. “Even though I think I was mentally prepared, it was still shocking some days how physically draining it is to be up to your knees in mud and just trying to strangle people to death.”  

Gustavsson says she knew that building muscle mass was key to being able to fight in her armor — especially since she claims it was the heaviest of all. 

“It’s so incredibly heavy. It’s so beautiful to look at, but it’s a challenge. When you get knocked on your back, it’s a challenge getting up,” she says. “And when you do that for 10 hours, and you do that multiple times a week. For example, in Episode 6 I think I have two practice fights and the shieldmaiden test.”

Training for Battle | Vikings: Valhalla S1E6

Gustavsson is referring to a particularly satisfying (and scream-heavy) scene in which Freydis’s newfound battle skills are put to the test against other women warriors, called shieldmaidens. At one point, Freydis gets knocked down by a fellow shield maiden, and it looks like she won’t bounce back. Bloody-faced and panting, and without bowing out, she lets her armor drop to the ground. The audience can feel how heavy that armor is and how liberating it is for Freydis to be free from it. She sets her eyes on her target and... well, you can probably guess how it ends. 

“I was bruised like a peach, like, bruised everywhere,” Gustavsson says. “But it was just so incredible to learn how to fight like this, and feel that, now, I can really stand on my own as a fighter and also as a performer.”

Of course, no Viking warrior fights alone, and Gustavsson says that her relationships with her co-stars were instrumental in developing the trust and dedication required to carry out this kind of combat on screen while having fun doing it. 

“If somebody knocks you in your face or you crack your head open, it’s easier if you like that person,” Gustavsson says. “Because otherwise, I guess you’d just go, ‘Next time I’m going to give it right back to you, you piece of shit.’ Of course, if I injure someone, I’m going to apologize. Maybe not in the middle of a take... sometimes it can really help if somebody hits you on your hand and you’re letting out a roar and coming back at them.”