While “House of Cards” often gets credit as Netflix’s first original series, that title is really held by “Lilyhammer,” the fish-out-of-water crime dramedy starring Steven Van Zandt premiering its second season Dec. 13.
In the series — a Norwegian co-production — Van Zandt plays mobster Frank “The Fixer” Tagliano, who enters witness protection and relocates to Lillehammer, Norway (which Frank pronounces “Lilly hammer,” which also refers to his late dog, Lily).
In the eight-episode second season, Frank — now a new father of twins — is threatened when his former mob associates find out he’s still alive.
Though “Lilyhammer” made history when it first premiered in February 2012, Netflix has followed it up with the success of “Cards,” “Arrested Development” and “Orange Is the New Black” — and Van Zandt says the show’s writers and actors were conscious of stepping up their game for Season Two.
“Early on, we have some fun with . . . instead of him being the invader into this culture, he’s now become a bit integrated into the culture so we have a third party invade them, which is some English hooligan,” Van Zandt told The Post. “The second episode touches on some racism issues. We’re able to have really interesting cultural discussions while entertaining people because Norway is quite a mystery to people — and quite an interesting culture itself.”
Van Zandt is no stranger to playing gangsters — his only other acting gig was as Silvio Dante, Tony Soprano’s consigliore on “The Sopranos” — and he embraced the role of Frank even though he wasn’t necessarily looking to return to acting.
“I thought it was a terrific idea knowing that Norway was a conservative country, very much a mono-culture, very civilized, no crime, no poverty. And here comes a one-man crime wave dropped into that world,” he says. “I thought ‘Oh my God,’ I can’t resist that.”
Besides starring in “Lilyhammer,” Van Zandt is also a writer and producer, and this season he even composed the show’s score — for free — so that the limited “Lilyhammer” music budget could go toward licensing other songs.
“The whole thing really is [a passion project],” he says. “Nobody’s going to get rich from a Norwegian television show. At this point, luckily most of my life I really don’t do anything for the money.”
Van Zandt’s passion projects still keep him quite busy, however — in late January, the guitarist will rejoin Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band for the tail end of their two-year “Wrecking Ball” tour.
“You can get a lot done even though you’re on the road,” Van Zandt says. “You’re on stage only three-and-a-half hours, the rest of the time you can work.”
In addition to Season Two of “Lilyhammer” — which he filmed last January through March in Oslo and Lillehammer, when the tour was on a break — Van Zandt found time to write and produce the Broadway show “The Rascals: Once Upon a Dream.”
After going on a national tour, the show returns to Broadway’s Marquis Theatre for a limited engagement Dec. 16 to Jan. 5. — a successful run Van Zandt credits to the feelgood vibe of the two-hour hybrid rock concert/Broadway show.
“By transporting people back to the ’60s for two hours . . . you reintroduce them to this thing called optimism and hope, which is what was in the air in the ’60s and doesn’t exist anymore,” he says. “Those days are over. We’re all walking around depressed and in denial about it.
“This show does just feel like a psychic bath that washes off all that negativity that we are bombarded with in these 24-hour news programs.
“It’s a nice unintended consequence.”