Vigdís: The Making Of The Nation’s Role Model

New series follows Vigdís Finnbogadóttir’s path to presidency

“We were all kids in the 80s when Vigdís was president. She was very influential on our generation — on my generation,” says director and actor Björn Hlynur Haraldsson (Jar City, Verbúðin, Dýrið, Villibráð and more), speaking of a woman who, in 1980, made history not only as Iceland’s first female president but also as the world’s first democratically elected female head of state. Rather than following the capitalist zeitgeist of the era, Vigdís Finnbogadóttir dedicated herself to protecting Iceland’s environment and cultural legacy, and broke the glass ceiling for the next generation of women.

Her journey to the presidency is now chronicled in Vigdís, a four-episode mini-series that premiered on RÚV on January 1. Each episode runs for an hour, following Vigdís from age 17, when she finishes school, through her studies in France, up until her election as president in 1980.

“Rakel [Garðarsdóttir], the main producer and the one who had the idea to make a series about Vigdís, is my wife. She basically just told me to do it,” Björn laughs, explaining how he got involved in the project. “I was really happy to be on board, and I had been on the side with them before — reading the scripts and being supportive.”

The idea for the project first began to take shape more than a decade ago. First, the script was in the works, then came the classic filmmakers’ quest to secure funding. But there was always one issue. “We didn’t really know what it was supposed to be — maybe a film or a longer series,” Björn explains. Writing a real person’s story is tricky, he adds, as you have to rely on facts but also find a compelling narrative. “We just wanted to give it time. We had to do it right with this story and we didn’t want to rush into something that wasn’t.”

Director Björn Hlynur Haraldsson

In 2024, everything fell into place for the crew, and the series was filmed in just 60 days over the summer. Björn directed the first two episodes, while actress and director Tinna Hrafnsdóttir took the helm for episodes three and four.

A legacy in trusted hands

Vigdís, now 94, has been supportive of the project from its inception. “She’s been involved through the years,” Björn says, adding that Rakel, scriptwriters Björg Magnúsdóttir and Ágústa M. Ólafsdóttir, and one of the lead actresses met with her to better understand her character. “We all knew what kind of outwardly presidential person she was, but we had to uncover more of her personal side,” explains Björn.

According to him, the former president gave the creators complete carte blanche for the project, without reading the script. “She put it in Rakel’s and Ágústa’s hands and said, ‘I trust you to do this,’” Björn says. “She would have said no if it were done by people she didn’t trust,” he adds with a smile.

“You could make a series about Vigdís and then meet her at Melabúðin. We live in a tiny town and, as a society, we have to treat each other with respect when telling stories like this.”

Watching your own life story on screen could feel strange — perhaps even uncomfortable — but it’s not something entirely new. I bring up The Crown and the rumours of royal family members secretly watching and commenting on the show. Björn laughs. “There was more fiction in The Crown. They were not really involved to begin with. So much has been made about the U.K. royal family that they’ve probably never been asked if it could be made into a movie or something,” he says. “Iceland is such a small community, everyone knows each other, so it has to be done in the right way,” he smiles, adding, “You could make a series about Vigdís and then meet her at Melabúðin. We live in a tiny town and as a society, we have to treat each other with respect when telling stories like this.”

Portraying an icon

Playing a national icon and the world’s first female president is a monumental task, shared between two actresses — Elín Hall portraying young Vigdís and Nína Dögg Filipusdóttir as her older self. Both choices couldn’t be more fitting.

In recent years, Elín has been steadily making waves in the Icelandic film industry. Between her lead role in critically acclaimed Ljósbrot and being named a 2025 European Shooting Star for her impact both at home and abroad — all while developing her music career — she slips into the post-war era with remarkable ease. Her uncanny resemblance to young Vigdís is merely a bonus.

“We saw a picture of Elín that looked very much like the picture of Vigdís at a similar age and said, ‘Wow, she really looks like her in those years,’” Björn explains. “But that wasn’t the main thing. Luckily for us, she is a great actress as well. Finding someone having both the look and the immense talent was like hitting the jackpot.”

Björn points out that casting two actors to capture a single character’s journey across different periods is a daunting challenge — particularly in Iceland. The rest, in his words, is just “work.”

“The only challenging thing I can think of is finding the right people because Iceland is so small. If we go over to Scandinavia or London, for example, we can have a casting session with 1000 women that could play her easily. But here, it’s one or two.”

“Finding someone having both the look and the immense talent was like hitting the jackpot.“

Capturing old Reykjavík came with its own challenges. “Reykjavík today is very different from the old days. A lot of things have been torn down,” says Björn, noting that making a period piece in Reykjavík is becoming increasingly difficult. “Everything in the frame has to be perfect, you cannot shoot a scene by a window and have a Tesla drive by,” he says. Still, shooting entirely on location, the team pulled it off, and Björn is happy with how it all turned out.

Rewriting the rules

“A woman of her generation was not really expected to do anything else but to find a husband and settle down. But Vigdís had a really strong urge to get an education, see the world, meet people,” Björn emphasises. “I said it to the young actors in the first episode, ‘We don’t realise how much of a rebel she was.’ Wearing trousers — men’s trousers — to MR [Menntaskólinn í Reykjavík] downtown — no one thinks about it today, but back then, when she did it, it was an act of rebellion. It was such a massive thing. No one had done that before.”

Photo: Rán Bjargar

For those who lived through Vigdís’ presidency, Björn hopes the series offers a chance to view her life from a more personal angle, while for younger generations, it will underscore what an important figure she is in Iceland’s history. Although the series only covers her life up to the point she became president, leaving out her 16 years in office, Björn hints that the future may hold more — depending on how the series is received.

“She broke some moulds for women especially, and for me as well,” he says, summing up. “Follow your dreams. Don’t let anyone or anything stop you. That’s basically what [the series] is about — and the hope that things will get better with time.”

Watch Vigdís with English subtitles on RÚV 2