'It's rubbish, just rubbish': Eight times Fargo stars commented on Calgary's complicated weather

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We all like to chat about Calgary’s confusing weather from time-to-time, and the stars who have filmed in our city are no different. The Herald’s entertainment journalist Eric Volmers has written extensively on the Alberta-shot Fargo series over the years and takes us back through the cast’s most memorable weather quotes.

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“We’re like ‘No, no, we need it, this is what we’re here for.  When it gets warm, we are all a little disappointed. I quite like it. I think when it gets really down to the minus 20s, I’m like ‘This is the real deal.’ This is what it’s meant to feel like. This is what it should feel like.”

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“It’s rubbish, just rubbish. I’m under house arrest.”

“I live in Los Angeles, so yeah, I definitely came home and defrosted there’s no question about it. We really loved shooting in Calgary. It’s a great city and the people are terrific there. It was great. The people in Western Canada really remind me of home folks a lot. The weather, however, was miserable. Even the Canadian crew said it was the worst winter they had for years and years. I got to fly home quite a bit. When you have sinus, allergy trouble like I do, sometimes that’s a problem because you go from one extreme to the other and end up having a cold all the time. A lot of us were sick.”

“The cold is interesting. I’ve never been in -37 before. That was something I wanted to experience. And I have. But I’m glad it has thawed out.”  

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– British actor Martin Freeman on filming the first season of Fargo in Calgary.

“It had it challenges. Sometimes you had to fight hard to maintain your concentration during such a cold climate. You had to try to do your best to stay warm and stay in the zone. For me, in my career, it was a unique challenge. I had never really worked in that sort of weather before.”

“It was pretty intense. We were in, I think, 10 degree below weather doing this stuff over and over again . . . It helps in terms of putting yourself through what the character is going through with Mother Nature giving you a huge assist. With the landscape, it was a very well-chosen location in terms of feeding that sense of expanse and desolation and maybe the loneliness of those people.”

– Oliver Platt, who starred in the first season of Fargo in 2014.

“It’s beautiful up here. I’ve been living in California, (but) I’m from Massachusetts, I’ve got to say, it’s nice to be back in the snow for a full winter. I’ve really loved it.”

– Joe Keery on shooting Season 5 of Fargo in the snow in 2022/2023.

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