In 2011, he starred in, co-wrote, and was the executive producer for an English and Norwegian language series entitled "Lilyhammer", the first original Netflix series that was produced in collaboration with Norwegian broadcaster NRK. The name recalls the city of Lillehammer, which hosted the 1994 Winter Olympics. On the show, Van Zandt portrays a "Sopranos"-like role of an ex-mafioso who enters the witness protection program and flees to Norway to escape a colleague against whom he testified. The show premiered on NRK television on January 25, 2012 with an audience of 998,000 viewers (one fifth of Norway's population), and ran for three seasons before being cancelled in 2015.