Episodic crime thrillers are everywhere you look these days, but the “Nordic Noir” subgenre regularly throws up plenty of hidden gems and unsung favorites, with Black Sands one of the best to come along in a long while.

The slow-burning eight-episode Icelandic series follows Aníta Elínardóttir, a police officer who returns to her childhood village to take a position after resigning in the capital city of Reykjavik. Despite being gone for over a decade, not much has changed as the tourist trap famed for its titular beaches remains largely untouched, while even her strained relationship with her mother hasn’t healed.

However, when the body of a young woman is found on the beach, the subsequent investigation uncovers a trail of suspiciously similar killings dating back years that the local authorities had written off, with Aníta being drawn into a personal and professional mystery that threatens to unravel her entire existence.

As well as playing the lead role, Aldís Amah Hamilton also co-created and co-wrote Black Sands, making her the first person of color to take top billing and serve as a writer on an Icelandic TV series, as well as the first actress of color to be nominated for Actress of the Year at the Edda Awards, the country’s equivalent of the Emmys.

Fresh from the trailblazing and groundbreaking first season, We Got This Covered had the chance to speak to Amah Hamilton about Black Sands, her reaction to the show becoming an international sensation streamed in almost every major market around the world, what audiences can expect from season 2, the difficulties in being a writer and co-creator at the same time as playing the lead, her dream role and much more, which you can check out below.

The obvious but still important question is how is Black Sands season 2 coming along? Was it easy to get back into the swing of things seeing as it’s been a while since the last episodes shot?

Aldís Amah Hamilton: It’s coming along really nicely. We’re just doing some rehearsals now. And I was actually just saying that we are going to meet tonight to do a few last minute changes, because during rehearsals, we have so many amazing inputs from the other actors. And we just feel like it would be so wasteful if we didn’t use the opportunity to kind of expand on that, and deepen the script. So we’re still flexible and just getting a little bit of more work in, but other than that, we’re gonna start shooting on the 29th of August. So in, what, three weeks. Wild!

After that gut-punch of an ending in the finale, where will be finding Aníta both personally and professionally when Black Sands returns?

Aldís Amah Hamilton: Well, I’ll tell you! Obviously, she’s just doing fine! No, she’s not… We’re going to we’re gonna meet Aníta about a year later or so after the first season. Obviously, there’s going to be a huge change in her social network and just her like immediate surroundings, after the ending, I just, I don’t want to give anything away. So I’m trying to really consider my words. But work-wise, she’s off the force for a while, she’s taking some time off, obviously, much-needed time off. But she’s about to step back into her role as a police officer at the village. So that’s kind of where we find her, I don’t want to give up anything else!

Not to give anything else up again, then, but it sounds like it’ll be another mother/daughter story, except this time with an entirely different dynamic?

Aldís Amah Hamilton: Well, I’m gonna leave that up to the viewer to find out. So stay tuned!

How does it feel knowing something you’ve played such a major part in creating is now a full-blown international sensation, with Black Sands now airing all over the world on places like ViaPlay, Sky, Disney Plus, you’re in China, Japan, the Philippines, all of the biggest markets?

Aldís Amah Hamilton: It feels very unreal. And, I mean, obviously, I don’t think we understood how successful this series would become. When we started this whole process, for us, it was just like, “If people here in Iceland like it, that’s fantastic.” And we just never realized that we had anything in our hands that could, I don’t know, resonate or help people… I don’t know, I don’t want to say help people connect with it.

But just like, at least give people a 45-minute break from their daily lives where they enjoy doing something completely different. I just didn’t realize that it would actually, people would be so happy to watch it all over the world. I just didn’t realize that. So yeah, it’s it’s absolutely wild. And I’m so grateful you watched it. Thank you for doing that.

I don’t know if this constitutes spoilers, but Baldvin Z [director Baldvin Zophoníasson] did say that season 2 would be the end of Black Sands. So is that public knowledge, and are we allowed to talk about that?

Aldís Amah Hamilton: Well, I suppose that if you know, it’s public knowledge! So yes, we are. Yeah, we’ve kind of went into that whole second season mindset with it being the basically second half. So it’s like later on, we’ll probably be talking about Black Sands the first half, Black Sands the second half. So that’s where we’re at right now at least.

How does that affect your process as a star, writer, and co-creator on the project? Does that sense of finality take the pressure off because you know there’s a finite conclusion, or does it increase knowing that this is the only chance you’ll get to stick the landing?

Aldís Amah Hamilton: I think it definitely increases for me. When we started we thought we’ll do it probably two seasons if we’re able to, maximum three. So we always knew this was not going to be like, something that was going to be stretched out for seasons on end. But now that it’s here, it feels like it’s going to be very hard to say goodbye. And I feel very aware now that we’re going back into shooting, every single day has to count. Every single day is special, everything we do is gonna be the the last time we do this exact story.

So it does feel very different. And as a writer, I now feel like I just got comfortable with writing, because this is the first project that I’ve ever done, writing-wise. So I think I just got comfortable with writing, because now I know these characters, and it’s both exciting and very intimidating to think that the next thing I write will be something from from scratch. Once again, you know, it’s so many mixed feelings, it’s a mixed bag of emotions.

Do you find it difficult at all to separate yourself from the writer to the performer, when you’re acting opposite all of these characters that you played a huge part in creating, building, and developing? Or is it easy to switch off and get into the actor’s mindset once you’re on set and the cameras are rolling?

Aldís Amah Hamilton: No, I’m the worst! I love nitpicking other characters, still. And now that we have other actors here who, as I said, like they have these amazing ideas where we’re just like, “Wow, I can’t believe we didn’t think of that.” It’s both…I feel very grateful that we’re able to do that, and have other kind of different aspects to it. But at the same time, it’s very hard for me to, like, when we’re entering a conversation about someone else’s character, it’s so hard for me to focus just on their relationship to my character, because I know their relationship to everything!

So sometimes that is very, I feel like maybe too much time of my mental space goes into thinking, “Oh, yeah, I see opportunities here for them,” rather than just focusing on my character; “Aníta wouldn’t know anything about what they’re doing, so this has nothing to do with me anymore.” But I feel I know, it’s absolutely fine because Baldvin is going to be the showrunner, he’s going to be plugged in, so are our co-writers as well, there’s four of us on this one.

So it’s me, Baldvin, Raggi [Ragnar Jónsson] and Elías [Kofoed Hansen], the four of us are writing the show. And he’s also going to be the showrunner, and director of at least I think three or four episodes. So I think I’ll be comfortable. Once we’re fully in shooting, I’ll be comfortable, just take a step back, and let things go the way they’re supposed to go. And worst case scenario, we’re also we’re good friends, we’re all very close. So it’s not hard, or I don’t think it’s intrusive, if I do a little, “Hey, can I say something,” you know?

In the broadest sense of the term, Black Sands is a crime thriller, but it also isn’t; there’s elements of family drama, mystery, romance, and plenty others besides. Was that a key part of the approach when developing the series to ensure that one never ended up overpowering the other to find the right balance that had been envisioned since the very beginning?

Aldís Amah Hamilton: Wow, that’s a really great question. Thank you for asking that. Our first season or the first half, Baldvin was definitely like the puppet master, because Ragnar and I had never written anything before. So he had written a bunch, he had written movies before, and series. So he knew kind of how to play to our strengths. So that’s kind of what we deal with the first season. And I do think we do the same thing with the second season, because we all have our strengths.

So, Ragnar is a police detective of 30 years. I’m obviously the only woman in the group, and I am also playing the lead, so I have the most insight into her. Baldvin has, like, he’s such an emotional and a very well-rounded human being. So I feel like he’s able to touch on everything. So I feel like all of us have our strengths. And I think that’s probably why nothing gets too overpowering. And if we ever feel like, “Okay, it’s missing a little bit of police action,” we collectively kind of work on that. So we’re just a really great team. And it hasn’t really been difficult to navigate, in my opinion.

But I know there are some people who think like, “Oh, there’s too much romance. I just want to see a police drama,” or, “Oh, this isn’t really like a whodunit, this is more of a family drama, I wasn’t looking for that.” But we think, you know, there are so many whodunits out there, we really wanted this one to kind of emphasize that even in a crime investigation, there are still people who are human, and who have all their flaws, and they have to go back to their lives once they check out, and we just kind of wanted to emphasize that. And I feel like we’re doing a pretty good job of navigating that field.

It’s been said that Black Sands is a “whodunit” but a “whydunit” that puts its cards on the table long before the end and then works backwards from there to reach a resolution, was that daunting at all during the writing and shooting stage to be playing that hand so early and subverting the audience’s expectations?

Aldís Amah Hamilton: Yes, it was, and we love doing that to our viewers! Sorry, we really like busting expectations. So we actually thought more people would just… What actually surprised us is that we thought everyone would figure it out, once we kind of gave away that, “This is the time to tell you guys, that’s who did it.” But a lot of people have now become so accustomed to the storyline trying to blow smoke in their eyes. So they were like, “Nah, there’s something else there. It’s gonna be a whodunit.”

So a lot of people just didn’t want to buy it that we actually told them who it was mid-series. So I think that was very interesting. But we always thought absolutely, we don’t want to create a whodunit, we want to make a crime series. But we do not want it to be a surprise at the end, you know what I mean? We just want people to be able to watch the drama unfold around the round the “why.”

So we can expect a similar subversion of expectations in the second half?

Aldís Amah Hamilton: I hope so. I hope we’ll be able to surprise people and kind of catch them a little bit off-guard, because what I think is that when you’re able to do that, people are able to kind of put their shields down, and then just be more susceptible or open to all the other things that are going on, once they kind of are able to get out of that, “Oh, I knew that would happen” mindset, they’re just kind of open to receive everything that is going on. So that is definitely what I hope we’re able to accomplish with the second season.

If you think about it, the biggest thing you could do to subvert season 2 would be to just make it a whodunit and have a big twist at the end.

Aldís Amah Hamilton: Well, that’s a great idea. We actually might have to go back to the writers’ room tonight and figure that out!

If you had a dream role you could play or a dream project you could make without any restrictions – as in, you start tomorrow and you’ve got complete freedom to do whatever you want – what would it be and why would it be that?

Aldís Amah Hamilton: It would probably be one of the original Marvel movies. I am such a Marvel movie fan. And honestly, when I think when I saw the final Marvel movie, I thought, – especially the Avengers movies – I cried my eyes out because I just realized, you know, I will never be able to do it. Now they’ve closed that chapter, at least for now.

So I think for me, it would definitely be something as big and grand as that. I have been a superhero, sci-fi, alternative world fan for most of my life. And I think that’s something that is, you know, here in the North, this is not something we really do. So it’s very, it feels very far away. And probably that’s also why it’s such a dream.

You never know, Marvel’s never going to stop making movies and TV shows, so there’s always something happening.

Aldís Amah Hamilton: Exactly! And I mean, when The Lord of the Rings finished, we kind of thought, “All right, we’re never gonna have anything like that.” And then we get Game of Thrones, right?

It’ll happen.

Aldís Amah Hamilton: It’ll happen, and now it’s out in the world!

Black Sands is currently streaming on ViaPlay in the United States, and on other platforms around the world.

ncG1vNJzZmivlZy8tcDHoqqcp6aav6awjZympmekq3ymxMKlrKyhppp6qrrTnqmvoZWseqS7jJypnpmkpL9uw9Giq56qXZa7pXnSrZirZZGhsaq%2FjJqkmqBdna6utcutpqdlpJa5rL%2BMm6Oam5tiwKK6w6xkrJ2RqLyveZFmmKecXZ2ys3nDq5yapaNivKd5wZ6aqKWZo7RurYysrKmdop2ys7uO