20/11/2012 - US actor - and guitarist in Bruce Springsteen's E Street Band - Stevie Van Zandt signs for eight new episodes in Norway's so far most internationally successful television series

Italian-American actor-musician Stevie Van Zandt has signed for a second season of the Norwegian TV show Lilyhammer - the guitarist in Bruce Springsteen's E Street Band will be available to film between January-March 2013, after Springsteen decided to end his world tour in Mexico City on December 10.

Norwegian Rubicon TV CEO and producer Lasse Hallberg has already been to Lillehammer to scout locations for the upcoming eight episodes of the series, which took top ratings on Norwegian pubcaster NRK (more than a fifth of the population) and sold to more than 100 countries, including the US (Netflix) and the UK (BBC Four).

Scripted by Norwegian writers Anne Bjørnstad and Eilif Skodvin, Lilyhammer followed a New York mobster, Frank 'The Fixer' Tagliano, who asks the FBI - as part of a witness protection programme - to be relocated to the sleepy Norwegian town that hosted the 1994 Winter Olympics.

Known for his il consiglieri performance in HBO's The Sopranos television series, Van Zandt plays The Fixer, who finds it difficult to change from a feared and respected gangster in New York to an unemployed immigrant in Oppland - to move his way up in the provincial society, he must resort to old, unscrupulous methods.

Also starring Trond Fausa Aurvåg, Marian Saastad Ottesen, Sven Nordin, Kyrre Hellum and Anne Krigsvoll, Lilyhammer is likely to become the most successful Norwegian TV drama series ever - and unusual, too for a Nordic show: the 46-minute episodes are aired subtitled with original dialogue.