Nikolaj Coster-Waldau

Nikolaj William Coster-Waldau (born 27 July 1970) is a Danish actor and producer.

Coster-Waldau attended the Danish National School of Theatre and Contemporary Dance (Danish: Statens Teaterskole) from 1989 to 1993.

Coster-Waldau made his stage debut as Laertes in Hamlet at the Betty Nansen Theater.

He graduated from the Danish National School of Performing Arts in Copenhagen in 1993, and had his breakthrough role in Denmark with the film Nightwatch (1994).

He played Jaime Lannister in the HBO fantasy drama series Game of Thrones, for which he received two Primetime Emmy Award nominations for Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Drama Series.

His role in the film Nightwatch (1994) brought him fame in his native country.

He starred in his first British film Bent (1997).

Coster-Waldau was born in Rudkøbing, Denmark, the son of Hanne Søborg Coster, a librarian, and Jørgen Oscar Fritzer Waldau (died 1998).

He has spoken in interviews about his father's problems with alcohol, as well as his parents' divorce.

He has two older sisters, and was raised mainly by his mother.

He grew up in Tybjerg, a small village between Ringsted and Næstved in southern Zealand.

He then went on to play in Simon Staho's Wildside (1998), which he also co-wrote, and starred in Danish films such as Misery Harbour (1999).

In the U.S, his debut film role was in the war film Black Hawk Down (2001), playing Medal of Honor recipient Gary Gordon.

In 2001, he began his U.S. career in Ridley Scott's Black Hawk Down as Medal of Honor recipient Gary Gordon.

Coster-Waldau says "My first U.S. movie was Black Hawk Down and a friend helped me put myself on tape up on the attic over my apartment in Copenhagen. We shipped it out and I got lucky."

Coster-Waldau used his success to take roles on both sides of the Atlantic, particularly his native Scandinavia.

He had a leading role in Michael Apted's Enigma and played a villain in the action film My Name is Modesty (based upon the Modesty Blaise comic strip).

Scott brought Coster-Waldau back for the 2005 film Kingdom of Heaven.

Richard Loncraine cast Coster-Waldau for Wimbledon and Firewall.

In 2007, he played John Amsterdam, an immortal New York homicide detective who becomes mortal after finding true love, in the short-lived Fox television series New Amsterdam.

As a result of filming that series' pilot, Coster-Waldau obtained his Screen Actors Guild card.

He then played a detective in the short-lived Fox television series New Amsterdam (2008), and appeared in the 2009 Fox television film Virtuality, originally intended as a pilot.

He is a UNDP Goodwill Ambassador, drawing public attention to issues such as gender equality and climate change.

Coster-Waldau has appeared in numerous films in his native Denmark and Scandinavia, including Headhunters (2011) and A Thousand Times Good Night (2013).

From 2011 to 2019, Coster-Waldau played Jaime Lannister in the HBO series Game of Thrones, based on George R. R. Martin's fantasy novel series A Song of Ice and Fire.

He commented about the character "What's not to like about Jaime? As an actor I couldn't ask for a better role".

For his role, he received several accolades, including Primetime Emmy Award, Screen Actors Guild Award, Critics' Choice Television Award, Saturn Award and People's Choice Award nominations.

In 2011, he starred alongside Sam Shepard in Mateo Gil's feature Blackthorn, which premiered at the Tribeca Film Festival.

Later the same year he starred in Morten Tyldum's Headhunters.

The film went on to be the highest-grossing Norwegian film of all-time and received very positive reviews including a BAFTA Award nomination for Best Foreign Film.

Coster-Waldau starred in the 2013 horror film Mama alongside Jessica Chastain, which then debuted at number one in the US box office and grossed over $140 million worldwide.

He went on to play Sykes, a military weapons expert in the science fiction action thriller film Oblivion.

That same year, he co-starred with Juliette Binoche in Erik Poppe's drama A Thousand Times Good Night.

In 2014, he starred in Susanne Bier's Danish thriller A Second Chance as Andreas, a police officer forced to make a difficult choice.

He later recalled in a 2015 interview in TV Guide, "Finally getting my SAG card was huge for me...I got so excited I went straight to the SAG online shop and bought four mugs with SAG logo. [I] still have those mugs!"

In 2016, Coster-Waldau appeared in the action-fantasy film Gods of Egypt as Horus.

In early 2017, he starred in E.L. Katz's dark comedy Small Crimes which premiered at South by Southwest film festival on 11 March 2017, to positive reviews.

Coster-Waldau then appeared in the Danish film 3 Things, a thriller about a prime suspect of a bank robbery who negotiates the terms of his witness protection deal.

He starred in Roman Waugh's prison film Shot Caller, which premiered at the Los Angeles Film Festival on 16 June 2017.

Since January 2018 he has been the L'Oréal Paris global spokesperson for the company's Men Expert line of products.