00:01
Claes Bang
There's a quite massive Giacometti exhibition on at SMK at the moment. Giacometti is sort of how I got interested in going to museums and art, because my mum, she took me to museums when I was quite young, and I thought it was actually super boring and I didn't understand.

00:20
Claes Bang
Until all of a sudden there was this Giacometti in front of me, and that sort of was something I could understand at the age of seven. That spoke to me somehow. I think, to me, there's a lot of humor in it. It's almost like it has a cartoonish kind of feel to it. There was something that absolutely, all of a sudden, I was like, oh, going to museums is actually kind of cool.

00:44
Claes Bang
And I would always ask after that, so is there going to be one of those Giacomettis there? And I was super disappointed when I went to the museum shop and found out that I couldn't buy a miniature sort of Giacometti, because I really wanted to take one home. I'm really into museums and art and all that, and that sort of started with him.

01:09
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
My name is Tina Jøhnk Christensen, and I'm the host of Danish Originals, a podcast series created in partnership with the American Friends of the National Gallery of Denmark and the National Gallery of Denmark. Our goal is to celebrate Danish creatives who have made a significant mark in the US.

01:27
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
Today, our guest is Claes Bang, a Danish actor and musician. Welcome, Claes.

01:32
Claes Bang
Thank you so much. Thank you.

01:34
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
You are in your summer house in Denmark, but you are just back from a trip to New York. What was in New York, if I may be a bit nosy?

01:43
Claes Bang
There was a premiere for this Apple TV Plus series. They're very sort of specific. Remember to say it right, Apple TV Plus. Apple TV Plus series, which is called The New Look, which is about Christian Dior and Coco Chanel and how they sort of fared during the wars. Especially the first series is quite focused on those years, when France, as most of Europe, was occupied by the Nazis.

02:15
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
And you play a Nazi, which I will come back to a little bit later. As you are in Denmark, in your summer house, which is your home base, even though you travel the world, would you describe to the listeners where you are so they get a feel for the atmosphere in your location?

02:33
Claes Bang
It's just a nice quiet little cabin where I can just get a little bit away from the city and just take it easy and yeah, basically it's a tiny little country house, little cabin. We actually bought this just when COVID happened.

02:53
Claes Bang
I mean, I think a lot of people got a dog or a summer house or all kinds of weird stuff because they didn't know what to do with all the time. I was actually quite excited to see if we would still go here after COVID. But I'm here all the time. I really love it here.

03:11
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
I'm in Los Angeles and you're in Denmark, we're talking online. And I see a guitar in the background.

03:17
Claes Bang
This little room that I'm in right now is my little studio. I do a little bit of music on the side. I have this small project where I compose and record stuff, and I do that actually in this tiny little room that I'm in. Yeah.

03:36
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
And as I mentioned before, you travel the world today, you made your big international breakthrough with Ruben Östlund's The Square from 2017, won the Palme d'Or in Cannes and was nominated for a Golden Globe and an Oscar too. And in the film, you play the lead, the rather complicated character Christian, who's a curator of an arts museum in Stockholm. This job was not a piece of cake for you, right?

04:07
Claes Bang
No, no, no. That was — that was not a walk in the park. Absolutely not. It was quite full on. It was a quite long period of shooting. I think we shot that movie over three and a half months or something. And we had, I don't know, something like 70 or 80 shooting days, which is something. And also Ruben has his way of working. He's doing an enormous amount of takes. So you really, you really work for your pay. I actually really liked it.

04:39
Claes Bang
I think his idea is to sort of wear his actors out a little bit, so that you sort of get to a point where you can't even remember your own name. And that sounds silly and stupid, but I think the purpose is that he really wants you to stop wanting something specific to happen in the scene.

04:58
Claes Bang
He wants you to stop producing something. Or if you rehearsed a line in a certain way, he wants you to get out of that sort of comfort thing and just try and just put yourself in that situation. You're in that scene on that day and just see if that can sort of take over. And, you know, when it really worked at its best, it's sort of like, it's more like the scene played us rather than we played the scene.

05:30
Claes Bang
And I thought that was actually, I really enjoyed it at the end. In the beginning, I was like, what the fuck? I mean, because, obviously, normally, today you get two, three, five takes on something, and then you need to move on because you're busy. And I thought, oh my God, it must be very bad what I do that we had to do like 70 takes of it.

05:53
Claes Bang
But then he went and did 70 takes with everybody, so it wasn't only me. And then I sort of realized this is his way of working and I sort of knew that a little bit beforehand as well. I enjoyed that process very much. Also because, I mean, he really pulled me into the whole creation of the whole thing.

06:11
Claes Bang
We did a lot of improvs together. After filming that day we'd go out to dinner and then we'd do improvs of something we would shoot the next week. He really allowed me a quite big say on it and really invited me in. I don't think I've ever felt that sort of welcome on anything. He wanted everything you had. It was tough, but it was also quite sort of like I really felt taken seriously. I did. It was good.

06:41
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
How much time did you get to spend in art museums as research for the role? And are you a frequent art museum visitor yourself?

06:51
Claes Bang
Yeah, I would say I am. I would say I am. On that trip to New York a couple of weeks ago for the premiere of The New Look, I managed to get myself into the Guggenheim and the MoMA and the Whitney over three days. And I think I even like them more than Ruben Östlund does, because I think he also thinks that, you know, some of the art installations in his movie, in that museum, he's a little bit taking the piss out of it, I feel.

07:18
Claes Bang
He has a thing where he thinks that sometimes, I mean, that whole movie, well, among other things, is about, you know, when the art starts to sort of take itself a little too seriously and think that it perhaps is more than the actual work of art. And I think he was a little bit trying to sort of expose that.

07:41
Claes Bang
I remember saying to him, listen, Ruben, what we're making here, this movie is a work of art itself. So don't fucking shit where you eat. But he didn't care about that.

07:53
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
You are into art as you explained.

07:56
Claes Bang
Yes. I am into art.

07:58
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
And your wife, Lis Kasper Bang, is a very accomplished photographer, I should add.

08:03
Claes Bang
Yeah.

08:04
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
How would you describe your taste in art? I read somewhere that you like Francis Bacon, for instance, who's rather gut wrenching. What else do you like?

08:14
Claes Bang
I like anything, really. I mean, I don't have a preference. I just really like to be taken by whatever is there. I really love going to an exhibition or a show or a play or a performance or go to see installation. I really like these things and I like it when they sort of surprise me, and it's something that I never thought —

08:38
Claes Bang
I always go back to this because it was such a massive thing. You know the Icelandic-Danish artist Olafur Eliasson? He did this weird — I can't remember what the name of it was, but it was a tunnel that you walk through. And it's quite long, I think it's probably 100 meters or perhaps 200 meters, and it's filled with smoke.

09:02
Claes Bang
So you can't actually see one foot ahead of you or something. So you bump into people all the time because people go in both ends. So all of a sudden there's someone there and then the light in that tunnel changes. I mean, as you go, it sort of turns blue, yellow, orange.

09:20
Claes Bang
And I remember it. Actually, I was braver than my wife with this one because she was like, fuck, I can't do this, I don't like this thing of people, you know, all of a sudden they come right in front of my face because you literally can't see them. And I sort of enjoyed it. I didn't know anything about that. I mean, this was a very palpable experience, obviously, because it's like, all five senses are actually quite activated in that thing.

09:44
Claes Bang
I don't really, I don't have any specific genre or anything. I really like being in museums and especially when there's no one else there, when it's such a massive, big room, and there's just one little piece of art in the middle. And, you know, the emptiness of the space sort of points all your attention to this one thing, and that, really, I don't know. I really like it. And I especially like it when there's no one else there. I'd always love to be able to chase everybody out and just have it to myself.

10:16
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
Yeah. That sounds pretty selfish of you, Claes.

10:19
Claes Bang
Yeah, yeah, it is. Totally. Horrible. I've never managed to. I've never managed to. But I tend to try and go, you know, when I know that it's not so full. Because those things where you go — I mean, I'm not a big fan of going to the Louvre and seeing Mona Lisa with 2,000 people. I really like it when it sort of goes, you can really take your time and it's all slow and mellow. Yeah, I like that.

10:47
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
On a lighter note, in The Square you have a sex scene with the fabulous Elisabeth Moss, which is quite memorable and fun to watch. But I imagine that those scenes are not as fun to shoot as you would think. What is the art behind those kinds of scenes?

11:05
Claes Bang
I think that the main thing, 'coz it's always awkward, all of a sudden you're semi-naked in a room with somebody you probably met two days before or something. And it's always odd. And I'm not a big fan of it. But the thing is that if you just make it something quite technical and make a choreography out of it, and you just make sure that everybody knows what's going on.

11:31
Claes Bang
I have tried, you know, to have directors that were so shy about the whole thing or just said so, okay, so now you get naked and you go on that bed and then you just do your thing and I'll just be over here in the corner watching. I'll be like, okay, so why the fuck did you put a sex scene here, if you don't know what it's there for? There must be something you want to say with it.

11:51
Claes Bang
Should it be soft and sweet and lovely, or should it be quite hardcore, or should it be, why is the sex scene there? It can't just be you want to see people without clothes on, because that's weird. It must be that it plays into the narrative. That's what you do.

12:11
Claes Bang
You realize, okay, what's this, why is it here? Why do we even need to have a scene like this in the movie? What is it in contrast of, or what is it commenting on, or what is it trying to do? And then you make it into choreography and then you just go by the numbers in that.

12:24
Claes Bang
And then these days also, and I appreciate that, it's gotten quite popular that you have all these intimacy coordinators that make sure that you know that the people that are there that are quite exposed that everything is alright, and nobody's being taken advantage of or anything, or people don't feel uncomfortable with anything that's happening. Yeah, but it's odd, it is odd.

12:45
Claes Bang
There was this interview with Joanna Lumley in The Guardian, the English legend, actress, model, marvelous, I mean, she was fantastic, where she speaks about the whole sex scene, nudity kind of thing. And she was like, let's just take the bloody sex scenes out. Because it's never saying anything. It's only ever about looking at people's private parts and just checking that out.

13:14
Claes Bang
I mean, the thing that it said about Christian, it was not so much the sex of the sex scene. The thing that said a lot about Christian is what came after when they started fighting over the condom. And he didn't want to give it up and she wanted to throw it away, she said.

13:28
Claes Bang
And he was like, are you going to go and get yourself pregnant with that? Or, I mean, I don't know what his thoughts were. Then we start fighting over it. And that's also the really funny bit. Because it had that element to it. It totally made sense to have that sex scene in that movie. It's not always like that, I feel.

13:48
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
I mentioned the Globes and the Oscars. How was your first award show experience like? I met you at the Globes here in Los Angeles. Your hair was blonde, by the way.

13:58
Claes Bang
Yeah, I was doing The Girls in the Spider's Web and they bleached my hair for that. We did that every week and when I came out of that thing, I had a third of my hair left. I was really annoyed with those people. I mean, they really — that was crazy. We did far too much bleaching.

14:16
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
What was it like being in the room at these award shows? You looked like you were having fun.

14:22
Claes Bang
Yeah, I mean, I thought actually the Globes was more fun than the Oscars because you're sort of sat at a table and you have a little something to drink and eat and stuff. I am now a member of the Oscar Academy, that sort of happened when I did The Square, which I'm super, super happy about and very thankful for.

14:45
Claes Bang
So I have a little bit of a hard time sort of saying that I thought it was a bit of a drag to be at the actual show, but I actually thought it was. You know, it's gone so politically correct, so they don't dare to have hosts actually doing any jokes or everybody's scared that someone will say something that people will get offended by or something.

15:05
Claes Bang
I have to say, it looks like a very ugly mall or something where it takes place. And if you want to drink, you need to go out of the room. You can't sit there. I suppose, I mean, it would look weird with everybody, you know, sat in the rows with their little whiskey or something.

15:23
Claes Bang
I don't know what it is, but that is not allowed. And then it went on forever and ever. Listen, the thing was, we did not win. If we'd — if we'd won, I would have said it was the most amazing thing ever, I'm quite sure.

15:37
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
At least you're honest about that.

15:40
Claes Bang
We didn't bloody win. We didn't win the Globe and we didn't win the Oscar. I'm quite sure perhaps I would have said something quite different about it if we'd won.

15:53
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
Now it's been almost seven years since The Square's big success at the film festivals in Cannes, and it sort of began your career. You were 45 at the time, I believe?

16:04
Claes Bang
I got word that we got accepted into Cannes the day I turned 50.

16:10
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
Oh, you were, sorry.

16:12
Claes Bang
No, it's fine.

16:14
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
Okay. So, now that you have a perspective on it, what did that film and its huge success do for you, both personally and career wise?

16:23
Claes Bang
I think the sort of simple way of saying it, is when a film wins the Palme, the whole industry sees it. Everybody in the industry sees the Golden Palm winner. And that means that all of a sudden they're sitting there watching this guy they've never seen before, because I've really not been in anything international much up until that point.

16:47
Claes Bang
So there's this guy, he's got a great playing age, he's got great English, he can carry a film for two and a half hours, and he's got 30 years of experience. So I had the feeling, when I started meeting people, that I was what they in the industry call bankable. So what sort of just happened was that my market just got much, much bigger other than, you know, doing the odd little something in Germany here and now and now and then, or in Sweden and then mainly in Denmark where I'm from.

17:20
Claes Bang
All of a sudden, the supermarket that was displaying my merchandise was all of a sudden much bigger, which has been incredible. And I have to say, I can't thank Ruben and The Square and all that enough. I never thought something like this could happen, actually. I was probably starting to sort of hope that I could start to work a little bit abroad because I already had an English agent. A couple of years before that I had a German agent.

17:51
Claes Bang
I was starting to work a little bit in Germany, but you know, the way that you're put on display when your film wins the Golden Palm, it's not something I ever imagined. And I'm so grateful. I still am, and I'm still sometimes pinching my arm thinking, Whoa, what was that? What just happened?

18:11
Claes Bang
Because then I started getting stuff coming from all over the place. And then I got bloody greedy and I thought Jesus, actually, I've been around for a long time, but I mean, this is also such a weird little business. You're this week's flavor and then next week you're gone, right?

18:28
Claes Bang
So I thought, okay, the train is leaving the station, I'm just gonna jump on it and just go with it. So I pretty much filled my schedule with everything that could possibly fit in there because it was also like, oh wow, all of a sudden all these massive, really interesting projects came along and it felt really challenging and it felt like there was really something there to do.

18:53
Claes Bang
I mean, I've done vampires. I've done old Vikings, I've done modern day stuff. So it's been like such a huge palette of different stuff. You just want to sink your teeth right into it. So that's what I've done really.

19:08
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
You mentioned that you're kind of the flavor of the week. You were 50 when you gained your success. Do you think it was easier for you to deal with it at that age?

19:17
Claes Bang
I've had that question so many times, and I can't really answer it because it didn't happen when I was 20, so I've got nothing to compare it with. And it's also a little bit like saying, would you wish your father had lived 10 years more? Yeah, sure. Do you wish you'd met your wife 10 years before? Yeah, sure. But it's like I can't really do anything with it.

19:39
Claes Bang
I was actually having a quite sort of middle of the road, quite decent career before The Square. I've never had any other job than this. I've always lived off my acting. So it was going quite all right. The thing that then happened was like something out of a fairy tale, almost. So to sort of say that I hoped it would happen earlier is sort of a little bit saying that I regret what happened before and I actually don't.

20:06
Claes Bang
I always had the feeling probably, I think I always had the feeling that I actually had more to offer, I really had a feeling there was more potential there, that I was like this bloody racehorse just waiting for them to fucking open the box so I can just run. And then that all of a sudden happened and then I goddamn ran, didn't I?

20:27
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
Yes, you did. I mentioned it more because it might be tough when you are in your 20s and something like this happens. Yeah.

20:34
Claes Bang
No, I get it. And the question totally makes sense. It's just that it's a hard one to answer because you need something to compare it with. I did not have this all of a sudden luck and success to that extent when I was in my twenties. So I can't really say if I would have, but I don't bloody know. I mean I might have been horrible at dealing with it and gone straight to drugs and alcohol. I don't know.

21:00
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
I assume that your network has become a lot bigger. You probably have people like Nicole Kidman, Christopher Walken, and Juliette Binoche's numbers saved on your cell phone. I'm mentioning those because you worked with them. Is that the case? Do you have a huge network now?

21:18
Claes Bang
Yeah, the people that you meet and work with are people that you, to some extent, get to know. And it's like with everything else, really. I think some you connect with more than you connect with others.

21:31
Claes Bang
Some you go about your business on that actual job. And then some of them become colleagues, perhaps, that you want to try and do something more with or you keep in touch. It's a little bit like one or the other, yeah.

21:44
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
You play a really abusive asshole husband in the tv series Bad Sisters.

21:49
Claes Bang
Yes, I just play myself.

21:52
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
No, you don't.

21:53
Claes Bang
Yes, I do.

21:56
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
Which I truly loved, by the way.

21:59
Claes Bang
Oh, thank you.

21:59
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
And Sharon Horgan, who created and stars in it. She's an amazingly talented woman who I also love.

22:03
Claes Bang
Yes, yeah.

22:04
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
Do you ever worry that roles like that could damage your image —

22:08
Claes Bang
No.

22:08
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
Or do you just cherish these juicy evil characters?

22:11
Claes Bang
Yes, I actually do. And because there's a lot to play with these characters. Sometimes when you're the straight shooter or the main guy or the man in the middle of the whole thing, you're just there to glue the whole thing together. But these characters sort of stray and do all kinds of weird stuff and say all kinds of weird stuff. And I think there's more to play with.

22:33
Claes Bang
I was actually quite surprised the first time someone said there are people that will not take on unsympathetic roles because they are afraid that people will end up seeing them in a specific way. I mean, that's a pity if people think that I'm like that, but I don't worry about these things.

22:52
Claes Bang
I mainly sort of concentrate on the content and who's involved and who's the director, the whole thing. I will say though, that I have done so many baddies over the last couple of years. This guy in The New Look, he's also not so nice a guy. It turns really bad at the end of it.

23:11
Claes Bang
And then I was approached to do this movie that we shot last fall, William Tell. And I'm just such a clean cut hero in that. There's no — No nasty, I'm just the hero. And I actually also thought it was a good idea to try and do that because I was like, I can't just always, when I come up on screen, I'm just horrible. That actually was part of saying yes to that, that I thought it might be fun to also do some good.

23:45
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
And you play Dracula, Bram Stoker's Dracula in the BBC adaptation.

23:51
Claes Bang
Yes. But he's not a nasty guy. He's actually sweet.

23:53
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
Yeah, he kind of is. You make him sweet. And you play a brutal Viking in The Northman. Yeah. And in Apple TV+, am I saying it right?

24:02
Claes Bang
Apple TV+, it's been pointed out to me, you have to remember the plus when you talk about it. Good. Good.

24:08
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
You play a Nazi who uses Coco Chanel. What does a role have to have for you to be interested in it?

24:16
Claes Bang
It's never the same thing that sort of attracts me to something. And that's probably a very good thing, I think. With this one, I was quite intrigued by the fact that this had actually happened, and that I did not know anything about it. And I think that most people feel that way about the show, that they're like, whoa, wait a second, is this actually really real?

24:39
Claes Bang
Because we are not painting the prettiest picture of Coco Chanel. I think they were very cautious and very careful and quite meticulous in how they wrote it and made sure that there's a real connection to history. So this guy, he was half English, half German, and he was used by the Germans as a sort of agent, spy, diplomat kind of thing.

25:04
Claes Bang
And at this point, he's in Paris, and his job is to sort of befriend important people in Paris to try and see if the Nazis can gain anything from being friends with them. And Coco Chanel is one of them because obviously, she was the biggest fashion designer in Paris at the time.

25:24
Claes Bang
And so they find out that she's had to shut down her business because she sold a big part of her business to the Wertheimers and they are Jews and therefore they fled when the Nazis invaded France. They took off and took half of Chanel's business with them. So she had to close down shop.

25:46
Claes Bang
And the Nazis sort of spot that if they help her get back into business, perhaps she'll do a little favor for them. She is suspected by the French Resistance and government after the war for being a collaborator. And I think she actually had to leave Paris for a bit and went to Switzerland where she continued the affair with this guy that I am playing.

26:15
Claes Bang
I think she continued a lot of affairs. I think she had a lot of men. This guy that I'm playing, he was actually married and had his wife down in the south of France. And in the same way he was with Coco Chanel, he was friendly with eight or nine other women in Paris at the same time. So yeah, a nasty piece of work and it really turns ugly at the end of it.

26:38
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
Speaking of Dior and Chanel, are you a fashion fan?

26:42
Claes Bang
I'm super vain. I'm obviously obsessed with how I sort of present myself. And we shouldn't start talking about that because it's just, come on, just leave it alone. Yeah, that's just what it is. That's just what it is. But I mean, in the show, I have nothing to do with the whole fashion side of the story. I'm just the Nazi spy. So I don't have so much to do with the whole thing of that.

27:08
Claes Bang
And actually, I would say the show is probably more sort of historical than it's about fashion because it's more about how Christian Dior and Coco Chanel and Balenciaga and Balmain and some of those, how they fared during the war and how they sort of went about their everyday business. It's not so much celebrating fashion, do you think?

27:32
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
No, it's more what the art form could do to create hope for the people in the future.

27:38
Claes Bang
Yeah, yeah.

27:40
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
So you're also in Michael Lockshin's The Master and Margarita.

27:44
Claes Bang
Oh yes.

27:44
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
You play Pontius Pilate, and that has created a bit of a stir in Moscow. How has that experience been for you?

27:52
Claes Bang
I think that has been actually kind of disturbing because I did not know that the film was going to come out. And then all of a sudden, I started to get messages on my Instagram and mails from people saying, Hey, we saw the movie and it's so good. And all I was like, whoa, wait a second, has the movie come out? I wrote an email to Michael Lockshin. And I said, hey, Michael, what's going on? Has the movie come out?

28:19
Claes Bang
He did not respond for three or four days, which is not normal. And then when he did, he was like, hey, man, this has been mad, 'coz the movie has come out without my name on it. In Russia, there have been people, Putin-friendly people, who have called for me to be put in front of a jury, to be put in a courtroom, and actually be put in front of a firing squad for having made this movie. So there are threats made against his life.

28:49
Claes Bang
And I've tried to think, but I don't think I've ever been part of anything that prompted that kind of reaction. And when you think about it, a lot of people not living in Russia that are critical of Russia, they have lost their lives because all of a sudden, they come with their Novichok or whatever they give people. So it felt like a real threat. And when he wrote me that email, I got the vibe from him that he was nervous about it and that he was a bit shocked.

29:25
Claes Bang
Also, it's quite alienating, because I've not seen the movie. I've no idea. And also, there's something else. The novel and the movie is about a writer that is writing a book about Pontius Pilate, which is the character that I play. And in that story, he's sent to prison during the Stalin era in the Soviet Union, and it's quite critical of his dictatorship and censorship and everything.

29:55
Claes Bang
The whole film is in Russian, but he's writing the part of Pontius Pilate in Aramaic and Latin. So that's what we filmed it in. So I somehow tried to make sense of these scenes that we actually did in Latin and Aramaic, which are not two languages that I speak, so that was a bit of a stretch.

30:23
Claes Bang
Yeah, I'm super excited to see it. The whole film was almost put together when I went and did my little bit. So they actually showed me a trailer of the whole thing before I came aboard. The trailer played a big part in me joining because it looks so amazing. I really can't wait to see it. I'm very excited to see what it actually is that I'm part of.

30:47
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
Understandably. What are you working on now and how far out in the future is your schedule booked? You mentioned that you make sure that you make the most of it.

30:57
Claes Bang
Yeah, I'm going off to do something next week, but I don't think I can say what it is. And the next thing I can't say either, and the next thing I can't say either.

31:05
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
What is it with all this secrecy?

31:07
Claes Bang
Some producer has to come to you and say, okay, we can now say that we're doing this. I think I can actually say that in a couple of weeks, I'm going to Vienna to shoot a movie there that is called Mutterglück, a German movie in German, 'coz that is on IMDb, I know. So that must be sort of out there. That can't be something that I cannot speak about. So we're shooting that in March and April.

31:32
Claes Bang
But the other two projects that I right now know that I'm going to go into, I can't say any more about those. And then, there's some really interesting stuff waiting out there in the summer and in the fall, but it hasn't actually fallen totally into place yet, so I can't speak of that either actually. Sorry, boring.

31:54
Claes Bang
I can speak about what's coming out. I can speak about Bonjour Tristesse that we filmed last year in the south of France as this François Sagan novel. And that is aiming for festivals this spring, I think. This is me guessing and speculating a little bit, but that's what I get from them. I think the movie is finished and they are trying to submit it to festivals spring, summer, early fall.

32:25
Claes Bang
And then also this thing we talked about just before, William Tell. I don't know how they'll manage but they have said since we stopped filming it that they were aiming for, you know, that stretch of Venice and Toronto, which is sort of the end of August, beginning of September. And if they make that, it's such a massive movie, we're shooting crossbows and normal bows all the time, so they have to put in like 10,000 CGI arrows.

32:56
Claes Bang
I don't know how they'll do that. But that's what they've said that they were aiming to see if they can get it ready for an early fall release. So that's coming out. And then The Outlaws is coming out. The Outlaws is a Stephen Merchant series that's gone into its third series. I think that's coming out in March or April as well.

33:13
Claes Bang
For some reason, all the stuff that I've done has crammed itself into a release for these first six, eight months of this year. So I'm doing a lot of press at the moment also.

33:26
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
What do you personally think are your biggest achievements and biggest successes career wise? And did you experience any failures seen from your own perspective?

33:38
Claes Bang
I'm quite sure I've been part of stuff that did not do so well. I think one thing is sort of how well was it received or how well did it sit with the audience or the box office or something. That's one thing, but I'd say that I don't think I've ever actually taken on a job and not really done my best and really tried to make the most of it.

34:03
Claes Bang
You never go into a stage production or a movie or a television show — you never start out by saying, oh, let's just do something mediocre. You never do that. You always aim for something that is really bloody good. But it's really hard. If you look on IMDb, most films have a rating between 5 and 6. That's what it is. It's not easy making these things. A lot of things need to fall into place.

34:30
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
You're also a musician. What does music mean to you, and what is the relation between your talent as an actor and musician, if any?

34:40
Claes Bang
The thing about the music for me is that it's the antidote to what I do normally, 'coz the music is very much something I do on my own. Right here, where I'm sitting right now, I've got my little microphone, I've got my little keyboard, I've got my old Wurlitzer piano over here. I've got my guitar, I've got my little studio set up here.

35:02
Claes Bang
It's like where I sort of just go and just be in my own little space. And I always take just a tiny little bit of gear with me, so a lot of the songs I've written, probably I have written in my trailer waiting for the rain to stop so we could start shooting or waiting for the light to be exactly as we wanted it or whatever delays you have.

35:25
Claes Bang
And normally in my day job, I'm always with a lot of people. So always a director and an art director and camera people, the photographer, you've got the other actors, you've got so many other people, you've got the makeup, you've got costume.

35:39
Claes Bang
So it's a massive collaboration with a lot of people, which I love and enjoy, but sometimes I also really just like to do it the other way around, where no one interferes and I can just do my own little thing. So I think that's the not so very short answer to that question.

35:58
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
You are from Odense in Denmark, and I am too. How did growing up in a small provincial town in Denmark on an island shape you artistically? What did you bring along from here on your road to success?

36:14
Claes Bang
I only lived in that town, Odense, for the first six years of my life, and then I started moving around all over the country. When I was ten, I ended up in an even tinier, tiny, tiny, tiny little, I wouldn't even call it a town, it's a village of 1,200 people or something, where I was from 10 till I was 16.

36:36
Claes Bang
I mean, it was all about sports there. I mean, it was football, it was badminton, it was swimming, it was tennis. You'd do sports all the time. And it never at that point had crossed my mind that I would ever go into this business.

36:53
Claes Bang
It didn't happen until I moved away from there and went to another town, a bigger town. I did high school there and I got into this play that we did for some odd reason. I was in a band and someone said, do you wanna be in this play?

37:09
Claes Bang
I said, I don't think so. I've got no idea how to do that. And then they said, Oh, you can do it. I think you'd be great. And then I tried it and it was great. I loved it. And it was so much fun putting the whole thing together. That's sort of where it started for me. It's not like I've had this dream, or this idea, or this ambition to do this since I was a kid. Yeah, that's a long time ago. That's almost 40 years ago. Jesus.

37:42
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
You speak English with a British accent. How did this happen, and how comfortable are you with the American accent?

37:49
Claes Bang
I'm totally uncomfortable with the American accent. I can't do an American accent. I think how I sound now is just the wear and tear of spending a lot of time in Britain, in the UK. When I was a kid, you have something in Denmark called a confirmation, which is like a bar mitzvah or something, isn't it?

38:12
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
That's the Jewish version.

38:13
Claes Bang
That's the Jewish version. I don't know what it's called —

38:15
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
I think they call it confirmation, too.

38:16
Claes Bang
Okay, so that's what you do when you're 13, 14, 15 or something. But I didn't want to do that. I never felt particularly connected to anything, religious or anything. So I said I don't want to do that. And all my friends did it and they always were thrown this massive party and a lot of presents and stuff. And then my parents said, what would you like to do instead?

38:38
Claes Bang
And I said, I'd like to go on this language course to England. I don't know if you remember, but when we were kids in Denmark, you could go and then you'd stay, it was during your summer holidays, you'd go and stay with a family for a month and you'd go to school for a couple of hours everyday.

38:54
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
I did it too on the Isle of Wight.

38:56
Claes Bang
Oh, you were on the Isle of Wight. I was in Paignton and Brighton. I did it twice. And then I think I always probably thought that if I could keep my German and my English at a certain level, I could actually work in these languages too.

39:12
Claes Bang
Actually, earlier on, before The Square, I was sometimes approached to come and do this either sort of Romanian or Russian villain or something in a tiny little part, and I always said no to those things because I was always scared that you'd get stuck being typecast as someone who had that accent.

39:33
Claes Bang
I have taken English speaking parts as English people in English productions and I thought if you start doing those heavily accented, always for some reason, Eastern European villains, I was afraid that I'd get stuck in there and I thought that the potential would probably be bigger if I waited for the right thing to come along.

39:55
Claes Bang
And I remember quite clearly, this is also funny, because when we did The Square, I think perhaps 25% of it is in English because the scenes that I have with Dominic West and Elizabeth Moss are obviously in English because they don't speak Swedish or Danish. And so we started doing these scenes and then Ruben was like, what's going on with that accent?

40:18
Claes Bang
Why are you, what are you doing? I said, I'm not doing anything. This is just how I sound. This is how my English has come to sound. He said, I don't want that. I want you to sound Danish. You are Danish. I said, no, I'm not going to do that. I mean, one thing, this museum curator, he's an international sort of figure. He could totally have a slightly more international accent.

40:42
Claes Bang
And also, I'm not going to ruin my opportunities to do something else. Your film is going to come out and it's going to probably display me in a way I've never done before. So I'm not going to sit there and display in English that is not how I sound and is cliched in that way. We actually quarreled a lot about it and I said it's not going to happen, I'm just going to sound like this.

41:06
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
I'm impressed that you won that.

41:09
Claes Bang
Yeah, I think it's probably the only battle I ever won with him.

41:14
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
This is my last question to you, Claes. What is still on your bucket list? What do you still want to achieve in life?

41:24
Claes Bang
Um… What would I like? I mean —

41:27
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
Personally or career-wise.

41:29
Claes Bang
I just want to be here. I like to be here. On the planet, with the people that are dear to me. In terms of work, I really hope that this whole thing, this train that is now up and running, that it'll sort of be the gift that keeps giving in the sense that I hope that interesting stuff will keep coming my way and that I put in the work that will prompt more to come.

41:59
Claes Bang
But I don't have a specific play that I really want to do or — I would so love to do a David Lynch movie. That is one thing that would be — his body of work is to me probably the greatest. I can never not watch his movies. I can always watch one of his movies. Really, that would be one thing that I could say that would be on my bucket list. To make a movie with David Lynch would be good.

42:29
Claes Bang
I think I've been so fortunate to travel so much with this work over the last seven or eight, nine years. So that's been amazing, but I've never been to Japan and I'd really love to go there. That would be something. Then it's on my bucket list to be at least 90 and with my wife, please. I want to be here for a long time.

42:49
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
Thank you so much for your time, Claes. We appreciate that you participated in Danish Originals.

42:55
Claes Bang
Thank you so much for having me.

42:58
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
For today's episode, Claes Bang talked about Alberto Giacometti at the National Gallery of Denmark.