The less said about what professional footballers get up to in their spare time the better. Hannes Þór Halldórsson, on the other hand, was a semi-pro goalie in Iceland who juggled shot-stopping – including for the national team – and film directing. The release of Cop Secret, a satirical action movie and his debut feature film, called for a chat with Carl Marsh.
Most people who aren’t from Iceland probably won’t know that you didn’t follow the traditional route when it comes to your football career. Before going full-time professional at 29, you’d gone to film school and obtained a successful career in film and TV. And now you’re back doing that!
Exactly, yeah, I had a very unusual football career. Most of my teammates in the national team went through the normal process of being good when they were young and going out abroad, [aged] around 16, to some academies. Then playing professional football at maybe 21.
Myself, I was a decent goalkeeper when I was young. But at 14, I dislocated my shoulder in a snowboarding accident and for five years, because it kept dislocating, I didn’t play any football. At 20 years old, I decided to give it one last go and started at the bottom of the Icelandic league system – in the third division, which is probably as low as it gets in the world of football. So playing as Iceland’s national team goalkeeper during the golden era – the best team we had ever had – going to the World Cup and the Euros, even just playing professional football, was something I never expected to do.
“My story is like a bad sports movie: the chubby nerd who ends up saving a penalty in a World Cup from the world’s best player.”
Hannes Þór Halldórsson
I did lots of short films and stuff like that in high school. When I graduated, I got a job in the film industry and started making music videos and cheap commercials. My small production companies started developing and rolling, and I kept getting jobs – climbing the ladder in the film industry while I was climbing the ladder in football.

The Icelandic football league isn’t a full-time career option like the majority of other leagues in Europe, right?
It’s semi-professional. So, when I finally got the chance to become a professional footballer at 29, I had already worked as a commercial director for nine years, and had played two years as the national number one and with Iceland’s biggest team [KR Reykjavík]. Still, it was getting quite hectic, and I welcomed the opportunity to be able to focus on one thing, not two.
I did two commercials while I was a professional [footballer]. One, probably my best one, before the 2018 World Cup, was a Coca-Cola commercial, which I could do as people just worked around my schedule. When I came to Iceland, we had one or two shooting days, and when the national team came together, we had like half of a shooting day.
And then, three days before the World Cup, I had three shooting things lined up; I was editing the commercial leading up to that first game! So we managed to parcel that somehow, as I knew it would be a big thing – we were going to the World Cup, and the goalkeeper was a filmmaker. I just thought we have to use this opportunity to do something, because I know this is a unique situation people find interesting.
And as for your showing in the World Cup itself… that’s like everybody’s dream on its own, but for Iceland to be facing Argentina, and you to save a penalty by Lionel Messi! You can’t make that shit up, can you?
That’s the thing, you know – I’m always being asked about film and football comparisons, all that stuff. And my story, even though I say so myself, is like the chubby video nerd back in high school who somehow ends up saving a penalty from the best football player in the world in the first game his tiny country’s ever played in a World Cup. It’s like the climax of a movie which would never fly because it’s just too corny and ridiculous. A bad sports movie, you know? It is unbelievable.
I just got reminded of it two days ago from FIFA. They just posted some things on Twitter and Instagram from that moment. And I think they use almost the exact words that you were saying. This was the stuff that dreams are made of, and that’s precisely true. I couldn’t think of a better moment for a goalkeeper. It’s like a one in a million thing. The chance of this happening is so tiny – I’m just so lucky that it happened. And it changed my life. And it’s now the moment that everybody remembers.
Did you ask Messi for his shirt after the game?
I had this working rule: I usually didn’t ask players for their shirts, except for when I played against a legendary goalkeeper, he was wearing shirt number one, and it was a game that I wanted to remember. And so I have five shirts, all from legendary goalkeepers, from big games.
Messi, unfortunately, isn’t a legendary goalkeeper, so I didn’t ask for his shirt. Maybe I should have made an exception on that one! But I have this wall in my home now with these five shirts, in a frame. I can send a picture to you if you think it’s interesting?
Yes, please! I’m sure Buzz readers will love to see that.

Cop Secret is out now in digital formats.
words CARL MARSH