Desuden genforener Vinterberg de svenske titaner Max von Sydow og Pernilla August ("Den gode vilje", "Jerusalem"), og han hiver flere af sine danske skuespillervenner ind foran kameraet i engelsktalende biroller (bl.a. Lars Brygmann, Bjarne Henriksen og Magnus Millang). Som cheffotograf har Vinterberg for femte gang valgt Anthony Dod Mantle ("Festen").
Luc Bessons franske selskab EuropaCorp har produceret thrilleren om den russiske atomubåd, som forliste på bunden af Barentshavet i august 2000. Vinterberg optog "Kursk" i Belgien, Frankrig og Norge for så længe siden, at den svenske skuespiller Michael Nyqvist, der døde i juni 2017, medvirker i en lille birolle.
> Læs mit interview med Colin Firth ("A Single Man")
> Mere Anthony Dod Mantle på Bries Blog-O-Rama
Jeg interviewede Thomas Vinterberg og Matthias Schoenaerts på sidste års Toronto Film Festival. Rundbordssamtalerne foregik på engelsk, som det vil fremgå af citaterne nedenfor.
Thomas Vinterberg (instruktør)
Matthias Schoenaerts was already attached to the lead role in "Kursk" when he brought the script to you. What was your initial reaction?
Reading this particular script with him in mind moved me, basically. He's radiating masculinity, humanity, warmth, a lot of complexity, and this character just came to life very quickly when I read it. Also I found an opportunity there to elevate the project from being a political thriller and hopefully into something grander. About humanity, about running out of time, about life and death.
My wife [Helene Reingaard Neumann, ed.] is a priest, she just became a priest - she was an actress before. She told me that where we come from, we used to talk about death. People died younger, and it was part of everyday life. That has changed over generations. There is a focus on being young and improving your life, but less people confront themselves with the fact that there is an end date. It has become the obligation of the literature and the film world to deal with these issues. And I found myself struck by this, by the bravery of these men in their last minutes and obviously the sadness of the story. But it did change quite a bit since I read it the first time. There was an opportunity here to make a big film on a certain scale and yet still, to some degree, make it my own which I found unique. There are not many of those projects around anymore.
"It's so fucking far away from Dogma."
- Thomas Vinterberg