Introduction
The Quiet Ones is a suspenseful action thriller about a team of ambitious and uncompromising criminals who share the same goal: to achieve the impossible despite great obstacles and personal costs. This is the story of the biggest and most spectacular heist in Danish history and the lengthy and risky preparations required to pull it off. Real events inspire the film.
In 2008, a group of men from Denmark and across Europe pulled off the biggest heist of all time on Danish soil. Kasper, a boxer with few chances left in life, is offered the opportunity to plan the robbery by its foreign initiators. At the risk of losing his family and everything that matters to him, he takes on the challenge in a bid to break all records and secure his place in the history books.
Interview
Cinema Scholars’ own Glen Dower recently interviewed director Frederik Louis Hviid about his new Danish heist film The Quiet Ones. The film had its world premiere at the 2024 Toronto International Film Festival and was released in theaters and On Demand by Magnet Releasing on February 21, 2025.
Lightly edited for content and clarity.
Glen Dower:
Mr. Hviid, how are you, Sir?
Frederik Louis Hviid:
I’m good. Thank you. How are you?
Glen Dower:
I’m good. We’re talking about The Quiet Ones. Now, one of my favorite aspects of the film is when I checked on IMDb for Violence and Gore, and it said Severe!
Frederik Louis Hviid:
Yeah, I saw that!
Glen Dower:
Very gratifying?
Frederik Louis Hviid:
Yeah! I saw also the Blu-ray cover, there’s the adults’ parental guidance and the red printed logo at the bottom. It felt like I was back at the video store, as they were the types of films that I would have sought out when I was a kid, it felt like a throwback to the good old days.
Glen Dower:
Yeah, of course, and there’s something about heist movies that are also nostalgic for some reason. The Quiet Ones is based on true events, a 2008 heist in Copenhagen, the biggest on Danish soil. Why do you think it’s the right time for this movie to be made?
Frederik Louis Hviid:
I think these types of robberies are a dying art. The physical aspect of bank robberies is not going to be done any longer. Everything is done digitally now. Everything is now from behind a laptop, right? Most banks are cashless now, in Denmark, at least they are.
It will not be done ever again. So I think that in itself kind of makes it special. It was the biggest one that was ever committed in Denmark. Not only that, it was also so successful. That trifecta of those three things made it very suitable for the big screen. That’s something I’ve been wanting to do for a long while, like a bucket list moment when I read about this in real life.
Glen Dower:
Of course. We have the Ocean’s Eleven movies, Tower Heist, and even Avengers Endgame was a heist movie. There is just something about them that is so exciting because whether they are a true story or not, they are just tension built upon tension upon tension. What was your approach to directing so you had the tools to build the suspense? Was it shot in sequence?
Frederik Louis Hviid:
Ha! No, it was very much not shot in sequence. As I remember it, we started by shooting the heist. All the night shoots were something we had a very hard start on. It was like three weeks of nights, and action from day one. To me, suspense is perhaps one of the most thrilling parts of writing scripts and directing scripts.
I think I enjoy, it more than watching the actual bomb go off; I like the idea of talking about it, you know, teasing that the fuse is getting shorter and shorter. And that is where the fun lies. It’s about igniting as many fuses as you can and showing people very early on how much shit can go wrong quickly! And once that’s implemented, when we watch it, we start to look for it to go wrong. I like the idea that it can go wrong, so I’m happy. I’ve done my job because now people are anxious that it will.
Just keep teasing people that maybe this was not exactly how it was supposed to go. The whole idea of sharing a plan with the audience and then watching it slide slowly but surely, I think, is a very rewarding thing. And I think it’s also very rewarding for me when I watch a film, it’s something that I enjoy a lot.
Glen Dower:
Definitely. The reward for the audience is when it all comes together, that’s cool.
Frederik Louis Hviid:
Yeah.
Glen Dower:
Now, I came to the film with a bit of a personal backstory because my wife is half Danish. My father-in-law used to work for DSB (the Danish national rail service). And I used to have a summer job with him, many years ago. He, my brother-in-law, and I would fix broken windows on the DSB in Copenhagen. So I was able to identify some of the locations.
Frederik Louis Hviid:
Really?! Thats amazing!
Glen Dower:
So I had the whole Danish lifestyle for a little while. Tuborg with a schnapps chaser, worshipping the idol Peter Schmeichel (legendary Danish soccer player)…
Frederik Louis Hviid:
Yes, sir!
Glen Dower:
So I just wanted to ask you, as this is very much a Danish story, but was there ever a point where you were going to supplant it perhaps and put it into a more glamorous setting and say, this was based in a story in Denmark, but we’re going to film in LA?
Frederik Louis Hviid:
No, because I think the themes were so universal that I couldn’t find any particular reason for moving it anywhere than what had been in real life. And I think whenever you depict something that happened in real life, you need to make sure that you follow that real-life story. Otherwise, why not just invent stuff yourself?
So I think that that was a big point for me. And then I think I was very clear on not trying to make it charming, not trying to make it slick, and glorifying the actions in any way. And I think you can easily do that when it’s like open shirts in a speedboat somewhere.
I think it tends to look like a lifestyle that you want to have yourself. And from what my research tells me – the criminal lifestyle is ugly. It’s difficult and dangerous. It’s paranoid. It can be exciting. It can be very alluring, but it’s also a lot of other things. And I wanted to make a real true depiction of what real-life crime looks like.
And we had the real main Danish organizer of the robbery attached to develop the script with us. He was incredibly helpful in terms of telling us what type of life it is when you dedicate yourself to crime, what it looks like, what it feels like, and how you look over your shoulder at all times. And that was an important point for me to get across; that it’s not a happy life. It’s not a life that will end in a good way. It never is. Maybe you can get away with some money stashed away. Probably not. But maybe you can. But you’re always going to be looking over your shoulder.
Glen Dower:
And in lots of these movies we do end up rooting for the bad guy, don’t we? So we’ll talk about your lead, of course, Casper, the main character, as played by Gustav Dyeekjaer Giese. How tricky was it to cast him? Because of course he’s a boxer and hasn’t had the career he wanted. He’s pulled between family life and wanting to make a name for himself. So how tricky was it to cast him and find the ideal leading man who had those qualities you were looking for?
Frederik Louis Hviid:
It was quite difficult because first and foremost, he needed to look like he was a prize fighter, which he was in real life. I mean, he competed on an international level and grew up with the future world’s weight champion, who was Danish. So he needed to look the part as well, which meant that it needed to be an actor who was very willing to go the extra mile in terms of embodying that level of, you know, elite physique. So that was one thing that was important to me. And then it needed to be an actor that I found equally charming and equally dangerous, that I knew just by watching him that he had a lot of secrets.
And I know this is going to sound stupid, but to me, secrets are the thing that gets me attached to a character. When I try to look, if I can see in their eyes that there’s something that they hide from me, then I’m all in. So I’m looking for secrets whenever I cast, what are they not telling me?
And Gustav, looking at him, in one way, can have these very soft, compassionate eyes, but he can also be incredibly hard to look at in a way. Not hard, but he can have a very stern appearance, and perhaps a frightening appearance as well. And I think the combination of something that is soft and vulnerable and also a very dangerous appearance, I think that was like what I was looking for. And then he’s an incredible actor too. Incredibly natural and very gifted and disciplined. I mean, so he came with the full package in my idea.
Glen Dower:
He did. And what you said perfectly sums up the movie – we have elements of danger, elements of softness, elements of ‘what’s going to happen next’ and what are the secrets? I love it. Well, Mr. Hviid I am sorry to say, my time is up, but it’s been a real pleasure. Thank you so much for your time and best of luck with the movie!
Frederik Louis Hviid:
Thank you so much, Glen. It was a pleasure talking to you.
THE QUIET ONES, from Magnet Releasing, opens In Theaters and VOD on FEBRUARY 21, 2025
