James Mottram

Denmark is currently going through a real boom in world-class film and television production, and the biggest beneficiaries seem to be actors, with the likes of Mads Mikkelsen, Sidse Babett Knudsen (Westworld), and Game of Thrones’ Nikolaj Coster-Waldau and Birgitte Hjort Sorensen embraced by Hollywood. Another actor on the rise is Pilou Asbæk who recently appeared in GOT as Euron Greyjoy and is about to star alongside Scarlett Johannsen in Ghost in the Shell.

But it all starts in their native country, which is where their craft is developed and where their true passion lies.

For Pilou Asbæk, his career wouldn’t be where it is today without the collaboration with writer/director Tobias Lindholm. Their third film together is A War, a hard hitting story of a soldier on trial in his homeland accused of civil murder in Afghanistan.

When Tobias offers you something, is it always a no-brainer for you to do it?

Oh yeah. If he says, “I have an idea,” I say, “yes.” This is our third film together [2010’s R: Hit First, Hit Hardest, 2012’s A Hijacking] and we’re kind of like an old married couple. I owe him so much because I wouldn’t have the career I’m having right now if it weren’t for the films he has written and directed. He also wrote most of Borgen [in which Asbæk and virtually every Danish actor has appeared]. He is an incredible writer. If you’ve seen The Hunt you know. He’s such a gifted guy, so I’m so thankful that he wants to make films with me and I’m just hoping and wishing it’s going to last for some more years. We’re probably going to move into America very soon. I wouldn’t be surprised.

At what part of the screenwriting process do you come into the project?

At the beginning. For A War he read an article that was the inspiration. We did A Hijacking and he always wanted to do some take on war because we weren’t for the first time in a war-torn nation, Afghanistan; we were killing the Taliban because we wanted to make democracy. He read this article about a guy saying he’s going back, he’s been in Afghanistan and how he’s going back. He said, “I’m not afraid of being killed in Afghanistan. I’m afraid of being prosecuted in Denmark.” Tobias was like, “what the fuck? You’re not afraid of the death, but you’re afraid of the humiliation of doing something wrong?” Then he said, “that’s what I want to investigate. This is the story I want to tell. I want to tell a story about a guy who’s fighting in a court room.” I loved the war scenes because it was fun. It’s a boy’s dream to play a soldier and run around with guns and everything, but the court room… even though I don’t do anything I just sit and listen… that was so intense, those weeks of shooting. That’s really where I was like, ‘this is a new take. This is like we combined three genres into one film.’ That’s what I think is original about A War compared to other war films.

Were the courtroom scenes really more intense than doing the explosions scenes, the battle scenes?

The courtroom was so intense because I didn’t know what the film would end with. He didn’t give me the script for the final five pages, so I didn’t know if I was guilty or not guilty.

Do you need breaks from Tobias? Especially after a film like that, do you not see each other for a while?

It’s so funny, but we started out hating each other. For real. On R, the first film we did, which was a prison film, we hated each other. He comes from a bad environment and I come from this upper class family in Copenhagen. I thought he was an idiot and he hated me because I was representing all the things that he thought he hated… old money, wealth, manners, politeness, he was like, “it’s fucking stupid.” We would fight and we would yell and we would throw stuff, but he’d also be the one who picked me up when I broke down, when I would be crying my heart out after doing a take. We have some very strict rules. When we work, no friends. I can’t be personal with him and he can’t get personal with me so he expects 110%. Me, I expect 120%. I want him to be up there because he’s going to pull me up and my performance and everything. When we’ve shot a film – this is funny – we don’t see each other for half a year afterwards. We don’t SMS. We don’t do nothing. Then he edits the film. He does the grading. Everything’s done, and when it’s finished then we talk and we see each other every single day.

Is it almost more pressure when you work with him, or is it more like coming home with family?

It’s coming home like family, but it’s the family that expects something from you. If I don’t deliver, and he told me, “Pilou, I’m going to bring in professional soldiers. If I see one single take where I see you personally, I’m going to call it in front of the whole crew and say that’s not good enough.” That’s tough man. He’s my mate, he’s my friend, so I did a bootcamp for three months with these professional soldiers because we don’t want to do fake shit. We want to be more realistic than a documentary. I’ll tell you one thing; most documentaries are more staged than our films.

When you do a boot camp like that, do they seriously get you up at four in the morning…

100%. I did all that shit. They woke me up in the middle of the night with a big fucking cannon like BOOM, fireworks next to my tent in the middle of the forest. I just had my underwear, big military boots and my gun and then I had a flashlight. They were fighting and then one of the real soldiers from the film says, “they just need to let some steam out.” They’ve been in Afghanistan, Iraq up to four times. He said, “what the fuck are you doing? You’re running towards the enemy with a flashlight in your fucking hand you fucking idiot! Go down! Give me 20 pushups!” I did the whole thing, but not to do it method. Our generation is so focused on method acting. You know what we should be focused on? Really good scripts, because that’s where the character is.

Do you ever write yourself? Is that something you’ve done?

Oh, I’m dyslexic. I can’t spell.

Are many Danish actors into method acting?

It’s a whole generation because Marlon Brando did it, Pacino, De Niro, all these guys. I love method acting, but you can take away the method. I just love acting. Whenever I act in front of Tobias, he calls it. He says, “you’re acting now. You’re trying to show off. I don’t need you to show off, I just need you to be in front of the cameras and say the fucking lines like I’ve written them. There’s a reason I’ve been writing this script for four years! I want it like this.”

How was your experience on Lucy?

That was fun. I get killed within five minutes. That’s what I do in Hollywood films.

Given what a massive hit that was, did it get you a presence in America?

My resume says “the guy from Lucy” and then it’s going to say “the guy from Ben-Hur”, then it’s going to say “the guy from Game of Thrones” Maybe one day I’ll just be the guy.

Now you’ve moved into English language territory, did you have a dream that would happen?

I think all actors want to do an American, Hollywood film because it is what inspired us all to begin with. I love the industry. I want to try American films but if you asked me three years ago I’d be like, “yeah I should do it. I want to do it.” Now when maybe it’s going to start happening I just want to go home. I just want to see my wife. I haven’t seen my family for five months this year. I’m doing what thousands are doing, trying to have a family and a career. “Alright, I missed the opening day of school, I’ll be there next year…”

Have you been watching Game of Thrones?

I fucking love it. I love it. I’m a huge fan. I’m a huge fan because Nikolaj Coster-Waldau’s in it and he’s incredible. I think the whole cast, the whole crew… it’s such an amazing production. I really feel that I’m trying the big, big, big Hollywood machine, and I mean it in the nicest way when I’m saying it’s a machine. It’s because it’s going so smooth.

I can say I’ve seen all of Game of Thrones. When I shot 1864 (2014 Scandi/German mini-series] in Prague it was the thing that saved me and my wife [playwright Anna Bro], because we had Agnes who had just been born and we had to do something at night. We would watch Game of Thrones, that would be happy hour of the day.

A War is available on DVD from February 8, 2017