Leo Suter, star of Vikings: Valhalla, has recounted a horrific filming stunt in which he was dragged behind a horse during a scene in season 2.
The historical drama depicts the 11th-century story of Norway’s prince Harald Sigurdsson as he battles England alongside Scandinavian ruler King Canute (Bradley Freegard) and Greenlanders Freyds Eirksdóttir (Frida Gustavsson) and Leif Eriksson (Sam Corlett).
Harald, Leig, and Freydis find themselves on the run after the fall of Kattegat, navigating the world apart from everything they’ve known.
And, as expected, the struggles they confront along the way are brutal, with Leo revealing a ‘genuinely frightening’ scenario during their trek.
‘I was dragged behind a horse this season and it was actually scary, it was mental,’ the Sanditon actor revealed in an exclusive interview with Metro.co.uk.
‘Yeah, it was mental!’
In one scene, Harald encounters a ‘fearsome tribe of bloodthirsty warriors’.

‘They want to put him through this sort of test of his manhood, and his bravery, sort of pain endurance before they go and string him up,’ Leo explained.
He continued: ‘They drag him behind a horse and they put a noose around him, and I had my hands around there so it’s not actually on my neck.
‘And then I have to trip and be dragged, and I have a cable release for if I’m not having a good time, that’s my safe word.
‘And so we did it, and it looks cool but it was kind of scary.’


Leo added that filming the scene, despite having a rope around his neck, wasn’t painful but was actually ‘pleasant’, but admitted: ‘It was sore the next day.’
Aside from that scenario, the 29-year-old actor revealed additional behind-the-scenes injuries, including nearly breaking someone’s nose with a sword during the first season’s production.
‘You can’t really hit people but, when it came to sort of kicking and punching in the ribs, we did we half went for it,’ Leo said.
In one fight scene, another actor “threw a blow and grazed my beard and it was like millimetres” from from inflicting him major harm.
‘If he had connected… that would have seriously hurt, so that was a close scrape,’ Leo recalled.
Thinking about injuries from filming the first series, he continued: ‘Last year, I broke someone’s nose which was bad, with a sword, which was mortifying, like really horrible, a horrible experience.’
‘The nature of these things is that you do take some hits and you have to sort of wear it because because stunt men and women are doing exactly the same,’ he added.
Vikings: Valhalla is available to watch on Netflix.