Danish Originals

On the eve of the release of Gladiator II, Elling-born Danish actress CONNIE NIELSEN recalls leaving home at 18 for Paris and Milan, moving later in New York at the recommendation of an American director, and the casting experience with Gladiator from 2000 that made her an international star. She shares her views about the role of women in Hollywood, her tv series about Danish author and painter K...

From his home in Charlottenlund in Copenhagen, Danish founder of his namesake art gallery NICOLAI WALLNER describes his passion, activated when a high schooler, for artists and for representing artists, and his efforts in the 1990s to open his gallery on Store Kongensgade, which pushed forward the paradigm shift in the development of Copenhagen's contemporary art scene. Nicolai recalls his fir...

From her home office, Des Moines, Iowa's Grandview University's American president and former prosecutor RACHELLE KECK talks about discovering her Danish ancestry as she leads the Danish Lutheran university founded by Danish immigrants and based on the ideologies of Golden Age Danish minister and author N.F.S. Grundtvig. Rachelle also discusses the unique skillsets of attorneys in running...

From his studio on Nansensgade in Copenhagen, Nordjylland-born Danish musician and cultural entrepreneur KRISTIAN RIIS talks about his half decade living in Los Angeles building NordicLA, a community for Scandinavian creatives and entrepreneurs. Kristian shares his work with his company Volcano, highlighting the ambitious mindful city initiative of Gelephu in Bhutan. Last but not least, he revisit...

Gug-born Los Angeles-based Danish DJ and music producer CARSTEN "SOULSHOCK" SCHACK talks about his journey in hip hop, R&B, and Pop from Aalborg to New York to Los Angeles. He shares stories of working with his producing partner Kenneth Karlin, and with Queen Latifah, Tupac, Whitney Houston, and Clive Davis. And he talks about raising his son after the untimely passing of his wife Maxe...

From his studio in Copenhagen, Tel Aviv-born Danish-Israeli artist TAL R covers a wide range of topics, from the importance of developing a language for his art, how photography raises the bar for painting, the integrity of color, what he looks for in the work of other artists, and maybe most significantly, to the role of failure as an artist's teacher. Tal additionally talks about American ar...

From his home in Copenhagen, Herning-born Danish writer, producer, radio and tv host JESPER BÆHRENZ recalls his 12-year stay in Los Angeles in the hills, pitching concepts in the expansive entertainment industry open to ideas, and returning to Denmark in 2021. Jesper reflects on his entry into radio back home at 17 and his early success, and with sustained success 40 years later today, shares his...

From her hometown in Randers, Chicago-based Danish artist ANNI HOLM talks about her two-year residency with the departments of garbage and recycling, education, and the Randers Art Museum. With a focus on community and sustainability, Anni's work is collaborative and experiential and participants-based. And she talks about her path finding her confidence as an artist and the difference between...

From his and his wife and partner Rebecca Work's vineyard Ampelos Cellars in Lompoc, Santa Barbara County, California, Copenhagen-born and Aalborg- and Aarhus-raised Danish winemaker PETER WORK talks about what it means to work closely with Mother Nature, how living life to the fullest is realized from making wine, what passion and skills are required to start a second career, and what it take...

In Los Angeles as part of her US tour for her new book, A New Beginning: Life on the Frontlines, Nakskov-born Danish author ANNA ECKHOFF talks about life working in NGOs in Sudan, Iraq, Afghanistan, and Palestine, and the simultaneously eye-opening and isolated environment of a western expatriate. And she contrasts the two phases of her life, first raising six children in Denmark and working in IT...

On a visit to Los Angeles, which he called home for one year, Copenhagen-based Danish actor CASPAR PHILLIPSON recalls visiting LA for the first time for the Oscars for Jackie (2016), in which he portrayed John F. Kennedy. He talks about two other instances playing JFK, in Blonde (2022), and in his newest film, Hammarskjöld (2023). And he teases about his Danish tv series The Orchestra, and his ver...

From her home in New York, Danish soprano JULIE REUMERT prepares for the world premiere of the photographic oratorio Number Our Days at the Perelman Performing Arts Center. Julie shares her journey from The Royal Academy of Music in Copenhagen to the the Big Apple's Manhattan School of Music that established the foundation for her performance and teaching career in opera in New York. She talks...

Gladsaxe-born-and-raised Danish-Pakistani film and television producer ASGER HUSSAIN shares his path from Copenhagen to New York to Los Angeles, where early on in New York, he began his producing career working for director Lee Daniels and on the Oscar-winning film Precious in 2010. Asger recalls his single most rewarding experience producing Five Fingers of Marseilles (2017), and articulates the...

Los Angeles-based Danish photographer GREGERS HEERING arrived in Los Angeles in the 2000s for the American Film Institute, and found his artistic calling in the poetry of still photography. Gregers retraces his journey, and describes seminal projects along the way, photographing homicide detectives in the South (2008), children in Western Greenland (2009), The Royal Danish Ballet (2009–2014), and...

Århus-born, Los-Angeles-based Danish Group Design Director AGNETE OERNSHOLT retraces her Graphic Design journey from her namesake Design studio and LEGO in Copenhagen to her bi-coastal team at Walt Disney Company's in-house creative agency Yellow Shoes Creative Group. Agnete, a self-described design-system geek and typography nerd, talks about LA as a creative mecca, and how she draws inspirat...

In Los Angeles to meet up with her management team, Wyoming-based Danish-Congolese actor, writer, producer, dancer and 2008 Miss Denmark, MARIA STEN plays Frances Neagley in the tv series Reacher and is a writer on the tv series Big Sky. In a wide-ranging interview, Maria talks about growing up in Denmark and her professional path in the US as a highly motivated and disciplined artist and a mixed-...

From his Copenhagen studio, Møn-born Danish artist BJØRNSTJERNE CHRISTIANSEN recalls growing up with two experimental artists as his parents. Bjørnstjerne shares how he co-founded SUPERFLEX in 1993 with Jakob Fenger and Rasmus Rosengren Nielsen, and talks about some of the art collective's Copenhagen and international collaborative projects that bring to light a wide range of societal issues w...

From Glendale, Los Angeles, in his home where he has lived since 2005, Danish musician and animator JØRGEN KLUBIEN talks about his parallel artistic paths, as a singer who rose to fame in Denmark with his band Danseorkestret in the 1980s, and as an animator with Disney Studios, where he made a mark on all the iconic films, from The Little Mermaid, The Lion King, Pocahontas, Mulan, A Bug's Life...

From his home in the Pacific Palisades in Los Angeles, Danish-American mountaineer and writer FINN-OLAF JONES describes growing up in Stevns, Denmark and Wayzata, Minnesota, surrounded by his American father's library and Danish art collection by Skagen Painters. Finn-Olaf talks about his latest project of completing the Seven Summits, as he reached the peaks of the highest mountains on each o...

From her home in Copenhagen, Robert-nominated Danish actor, writer, stand-up comedian, television host, and author METTE LISBY recalls her 12-year residence in Los Angeles, which followed a five-year stay in London, as a period of positivity and possibility. From her time as a pioneer female stand-up comic in the early 1990s to her current book projects, Mette shares how it's all been a journe...

From his Los Angeles home, Danish artist and Oscar-winning film producer BENNI KORZEN, who left Copenhagen for New York in 1964, talks first about his 200 or so abstract color paintings and collages that surround him. Benni recalls his Oscar win for Best Foreign Film for the Danish production Babette's Feast (1987), a 1960 documentary with CBS about the historic 1943 rescue of 99% of Danish Je...

From her home studio in the middle of Nørrebro in Copenhagen, Manila-born Danish-Filipino artist LILIBETH CUENCA RASMUSSEN recalls falling in love with art at her first exhibition as an exchange student in the US. Lilibeth talks about identity and performativity in art, the unique space of video and performance, as well as the challenges as a brown, female artist in the Danish and international ar...

From his new restaurant Ilis in Greenpoint, Brooklyn in New York City, Michelin-starred Danish chef MADS REFSLUND talks about the central role of the root cellar and the rethinking of the front of house and back of house model where the chefs are also the ones talking with diners about the food. Mads, a co-founder of Copenhagen's world renowned Noma, additionally shares memories about his star...

On a visit to Los Angeles, Danish actress JOSEFINE LINDEGAARD talks about her latest role as Greta on Zack Synder's Rebel Moon — Part 2, The Scargiver (2024), filmed in Santa Clarita just north of Los Angeles. Having grown up in Hellerup, Denmark and Warsaw, Poland, and arriving in New York and in Los Angeles in her late teens, Josefine recalls the small film roles in big projects, such as A M...

From his summer house and studio outside of Copenhagen, Odense-born Danish actor CLAES BANG recalls his experience making the satirical black comedy The Square that won the Palme d'Or at the 2017 Cannes Film Festival, and the myriad of interesting projects that have found him since, including the newly launched tv series The New Look about World War II and modern fashion. And Claes talks about...