I grew up in a tiny little village in the Danish countryside, but my grandparents lived in Copenhagen and I would come here to visit them. It seemed like a ridiculously big city, but I lived in a village of 40 people, so anything above that was big. I moved to Copenhagen when I was 17, and apart from a couple of years in London, it’s been Copenhagen ever since.
When I first moved here I was working in a Netto, a Danish supermarket. I always wanted to be an actor, but it felt like an impossible dream. I found a weekly acting course with an English guy called Barry McKenna. He saw something in me and said, “Why don’t you apply to theatre school?” I thought that was ridiculous, but then I was accepted. I never expected it to happen so quickly. My first role after leaving drama school was the lead in the Danish movie Nightwatch, and I went on to play Jaime Lannister in all eight seasons of the HBO series Game of Thrones. I have just finished The Last Mrs Parrish with Robert Zemeckis, and my fingers are crossed for a third season of my documentary series, An Optimist’s Guide to the Planet.
Coster-Waldau on Dyssebroen Bridge © Rasmus Weng Karlsen
Biking is the main mode of transport in Copenhagen: they have these bridges that are only for pedestrians and bicycles, crossing over the massive canal. It’s now so clean that there are all these different spots where you can swim in the water. And there are new neighbourhoods – Nordhavn and Sydhavnen – north and south of the main harbour. The focus on making recreational areas accessible to people living here is really cool.
