Tobias Santelmann will play the lead role in Jo Nesbø’s Detective Hole, a new Netflix series based on the Norwegian author’s series of crime novels, according to the Hollywood Reporter.
Santelmann, the Norwegian actor known for his roles in Kon-Tiki, Hercules, and Out Stealing Horses, will play Harry Hole, an Oslo police detective with unorthodox methods who struggles with mental health.
Hole first appeared in Nesbø’s 1997 novel, The Bat; the novel was translated into English by Don Bartlett and published in the U.S. in 2013. Several more novels featuring the detective followed, including Nemesis, The Leopard, and, most recently, Killing Moon.
The first season of the Netflix adaptation will be based on The Devil’s Star, which follows Hole on the trail of a serial killer in Oslo. Joel Kinnaman, the Swedish actor known for his work in the series The Killing and House of Cards and the films RoboCop and Suicide Squad, will play Tom Waaler, a corrupt Oslo police officer. Nesbø is among the show’s writers and executive producers.
Nesbø told the Hollywood Reporter, “All readers of the book series have their own vision of what Harry Hole would look like, and they should be allowed to keep that. [But] we will create a Harry that is based not only on the books but on the actor Tobias Santelmann and everyone involved in this project—both in front and behind the camera. For me, storytelling isn’t about serving people what they think they want, but what they didn’t know they wanted.”
Michael Schaub is a contributing writer.
