Bodnia: Anti Semitism Influenced Exit From The Bridge

Kim Bodnia has spoken openly about his reasons for leaving The Bridge during an interview on Israeli television, where he was promoting his new drama Hostages.

“There are many reasons why I am not in the third season,” says Bodnia. “One of the reasons is that from the beginning we had this journey with Martin Rodhe… We wanted to go from the good side to the evil side in his character.”

“When it turns out that Martin Rodhe is killing it’s the biggest fall in a person. And the third season has to be going from this dark side then come out to be a good guy again and to stay in prison and to work undercover in prison.”

“And at that time in Denmark we were improvising a lot to help the writers to go through stuff because we know the characters very well. And we had it under contract that we are allowed to do that and they changed it.”

“They changed the third season totally. I didn’t know it. I was in Hollywood and heard they were changing the thing and so I came back and we had some discussions that we were not allowed to be so much involved this time and it didn’t fit because we have it in our contract. They said it’s going to be without Martin.”

When asked if he would consider being involved in a fourth season of The Bridge, Bodnia says: “Everything is open. If they come and tell me about the script and we can work it out then it is possible.”

The interviewer then asks Bodnia about anti-Semitism in Scandinavia, to which he replies: “The last time I came here was right after the killing in front of the synagogue… it is growing… especially in Malmo where we shot The Bridge in Sweden.”

“It’s not very nice and comfortable to be there as a Jewish person so of course this has something to with it being easy for me to say no to working in Sweden. It’s very easy when they didn’t have the script right I can say ‘Well I don’t feel so safe there.'”

“It’s growing and we have to deal with it every day and we have to fight against it. But the young people that are living there now that come from outside into Denmark is growing too much. And the situation is that if people go to jail they have this possibility to grow the hate of Jewish people. And its growing inside the prison.”

“So, when I suggested that Martin is undercover in the prison why didn’t we do about that?”

The full interview is available to watch here.