Apple TV’s Nocturne starts streaming its first two episodes on Friday, and the serial killer thriller arrives with a setting shift that puts the story in Western Pennsylvania instead of Sweden. The weekly rollout continues every Friday through Dec. 25, giving the show a long runway as viewers decide how much of its regional voice they want to hear.
That voice matters because Nocturne is built from Swedish source material and now filters it through a distinctly local register. John Hlavin said the dialect was important for authenticity, adding that the series should be informed by the language the way Swedish noir is shaped by its own speech patterns. He also said that once the setting choice was made, everyone had to “play their part” in making it work.
The series is based on The Sandman, one of 11 novels about a retired Swedish cop, but the screen version follows Jonah Lynn, a retired Philadelphia cop now living in his dead wife’s hometown of Fairhaven, Pa. Liev Schreiber plays Jonah, while Stephen Graham takes on the role of the serial killer Jurek Walter. Rowan Joffé created the series and Hlavin developed it, with Susanne Selby contributing as dialect coach.
Graham said he worked on the accent by listening closely to the Pittsburgh crew, and he singled out his driver and the Teamsters as especially helpful. He also said the words “Karl” and “Stillers” helped him get into the sound of it. Graham, a British actor, said he liked the place where the show was filmed and that walking around, taking in the woods and the culture, had a major effect on his character.
Not everyone in Nocturne leans as hard into the accent. Zazie Beetz said Saga Bauer should have only a very light Pittsburgh sound, because the character was conceived as someone who would want to leave and do something else. That softer approach keeps the series from turning the dialect into a gimmick, even as the production uses it to signal place and tone.
The move to Western Pennsylvania also marks a shift from the original transfer plan, which had pointed to Maine to echo the forests and lakes of rural Sweden. In the past decade, productions filmed and set in Western Pennsylvania have become more willing to embrace Pittsburghese, and Nocturne now fits squarely inside that change. With the first two episodes landing Friday and the rest arriving weekly through Dec. 25, the real test is whether viewers accept a Swedish-born story told in a Pittsburgh-inflected voice.
