Ulrich Thomsen

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Ulrich Thomsen (2009)

Ulrich Thomsen (born December 6, 1963 in Næsby, Funen ) is a Danish actor . Since the early 1990s he has worked in over 60 film and television productions. His award-winning leading role in the Danish film Das Fest (1998) earned him international fame . He has also appeared repeatedly in German-speaking and international cinema (including Bella Martha , James Bond 007 - The world is not enough , The International ).

biography

Training and first film roles

Ulrich Thomsen was born in Næsby (now part of Odense ) on Funen in 1963 , Denmark's third largest island. In his youth, after high school, he worked as a pizza delivery boy in Beverly Hills , before he returned to his homeland and got a role in an outdoor play in Nyborg . A little later he was accepted at the Fame School in Odense and through this came in 1989 to the Copenhagen State Theater School. After graduating in 1993, he stood in the drama theaters of Dr. Dantes, Gadsakse, Mungo Park and Østre Gasværks theaters in Copenhagen on stage, where he has appeared in productions by Lars Kaalund ( Romeo and Juliet , The Hold-Up , And the Haunting Spirit , Love Story , Mozart, Amadeus ) , Alexa Thurs ( Rathunt ), Bente Kongboels ( Invisible Friends ), Philip Zandens ( A Dolls House ), Gerald Thomas' ( Chief Butterknife ) or Emil Hansens ( Man ).

Ulrich Thomsen at the Berlinale 2016.

Ulrich Thomsen made his film debut in 1994 in Ole Bornedal's cult thriller Nightwatch , in which he can be seen in a small role as a beating rowdy. After working for television, he played a leading role in Thomas Vinterberg's Zwei Helden in 1996 , in which he is confronted with an illegitimate daughter as a lovable bank robber on the flight to Sweden. For this achievement he received the 1997 Danish Film Academy award, the Robert , for best supporting actor. After a supporting role in Susanne Bier's thriller Merciless Seduction , the lead role followed in Anders Thomas Jensen's 11-minute short film Wahlnacht . Here Thomsen can be seen as idealistic and forgetful Peter who tries to cast his vote at a polling station in time. The film won the Oscar for best short film in 1999 (official count 1998) .

International career

Ulrich Thomsen's breakthrough as an actor came in the same year when he worked again with director Thomas Vinterberg. In Das Fest , next to Lars von Trier's Idioten, the first project to follow the rules of the dogma film , Thomsen plays the son of an old patriarch who accuses his father of sexual abuse at his father's birthday party in front of family and friends. The festival , filmed with the smallest and lightest digital camera that existed at the time, was in the favor of critics at its premiere at the Cannes Film Festival in 1998 and won the Robert Prize and the Prize of the Danish Film Critics Association, the Bodil , as well as in Denmark the award of the New York and Los Angeles Film Critics' Association and nominations for the British BAFTA Award , the French César and the Golden Globe , all for best foreign language film. Ulrich Thomsen, himself awarded the Robert und der Bodil as best leading actor, started his international career with Das Fest . He starred as villain Sasha Davidov in the James Bond adventure The World Is Not Enough (1999) and starred in Kathryn Bigelow's thriller The Weight of Water in 2000, alongside Sean Penn and Catherine McCormack .

In the following years, the 1.80 m tall actor, who speaks fluent German and English , became one of the most well-known actors in Danish cinema, but he was also seen in German and international film productions. In Bella Martha he acted alongside Martina Gedeck , in Blueprint , the film adaptation of Charlotte Kerner's bestselling book for young people of the same name , he was seen alongside Franka Potente as a scientist who clones the first human. In Chen Kaige's erotic thriller Killing Me Softly and Ridley Scott's Kingdom of Heaven , Joseph Fiennes and Heather Graham and Jeremy Irons , Brendan Gleeson and Edward Norton were his film partners. He received another Bodil and Robert for Best Actor in 2004 for Per Fly's Das Erbe . In the drama he can be seen as the young restaurant owner Christoffer , who lives with his Swedish wife in Stockholm and who, after his father's suicide, is given the choice by his mother of taking over the bankrupt family business in Copenhagen. With Susanne Biers Brothers - Between Brothers and Anders Thomas Jensen's Adam's Apples , he was able to repeatedly convince both Danish and European critics of his reputation as a versatile character actor. Between 2006 and 2008 the Dane worked on eleven film projects, of which the German production Der Liebeswunsch with Barbara Auer and Tobias Moretti has already been shot. In Tomas Villum Jensen's comedy Das Genie und der Wahnsinn , Thomsen plays a moviegoer who has just been released from prison and who sees himself cheated out of his money after the presentation of the new film by world-famous director Claus Volter (played by Nikolaj Lie Kaas ). In the thriller Alien Teacher , the Dane worked again with director Ole Bornedal, under whom he began his film career.

In addition to his work for the film, Ulrich Thomsen also acted in numerous television productions, including Thomas Vinterberg's Portfolio (1995), Ole Bornedals Charlot og Charlotte (1996) and Deep Water - Im Sog der Angst (2000), as well as the German production Ins Leben zurück von Markus Imboden and the thriller Abducted! (2009) by Matti Geschonneck . In 2005 Thomsen appeared in an episode of the successful adventure series Alias ​​- Die Agentin and as Baron Casper Breuner in Coky Giedroyc 's multi-part TV series The Virgin Queen , a film biography about the English monarch Elisabeth I.

Filmography (selection)

Awards

Bodil

  • 1999: Best Actor for Das Fest
  • 2004: Best Actor for Das Erbe
  • 2005: Nominated for Best Actor for Brothers - Between Brothers
  • 2009: Nominated for Best Actor for Den du frygter

Robert

  • 1997: Best Supporting Actor for Zwei Helden
  • 1999: Best Actor for Das Fest
  • 2004: Best Actor for Das Erbe
  • 2005: Nominated for Best Actor for Brothers - Between Brothers
  • 2006: Nominated for Best Actor for Adam's Apples
  • 2008: Nominated for Best Supporting Actor for Alien Teacher
  • 2009: Nominated for Best Actor for Den du frygter

European film award

  • 1998: Nominated for Best Actor for Das Fest
  • 2005 : Nominated for Best Actor and for the Audience Award for Brothers - Between Brothers

Further

Flaiano Film Festival

  • 2004: Best Actor for Das Erbe

Indianapolis International Film Festival

  • 2005: Special prize of the jury for the acting ensemble (together with Connie Nielsen, Bent Mejding and Nikolaj Lie Kaas) for Brothers - Between Brothers

Festival Internacional de Cine Contemporáno de la Ciudad de México

  • 2004: Best Actor for Das Erbe

Nordic Film Festival in Rouen

  • 1997: Best Actor for Two Heroes
  • 2004: Best Actor for Das Erbe

Festival Internacional de Cine de Donostia-San Sebastián

  • 2004: Best Actor for Brothers - Between Brothers

Ove Sprogøe Prize

  • 2015: Best Actor of the Year

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Steffen Paatz and Paul Wenzel: Ove Sprogøe Prize 2015 goes to Ulrich Thomsen. In: olsenbandenfanclub.de. Olsenbandenfanclub Germany, December 21, 2015, accessed on December 22, 2015 .
personal data
SURNAME Thomsen, Ulrich
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Danish actor
DATE OF BIRTH December 6, 1963
PLACE OF BIRTH Næsby on Funen , Denmark