00:01
Dan Laustsen
It's called The Green Line. It's a painting from Matisse, and he painted that in 1905, that's close to 120 years ago.

00:11
Dan Laustsen
It's a very colorful painting. I'm getting into this color world where I really like strong colors. When you cannot see something, it's difficult to paint it. He's seeing something and he's painting. And he just has this feeling about how strong the colors are. I don't understand how he can see that.

00:29
Dan Laustsen
One side is warm. Another one is cold. The middle, the nose is green. And for me, it's so amazing how he sees it, how he's thinking. For me, it's a super strong portrait. When I saw it for the first time in Copenhagen, actually, it was like, excuse me, what is this? Is this painted two years ago? No, it's painted 120 years ago, in a very strong and beautiful way.

00:55
Dan Laustsen
These strong palettes of colors — I think he chose that very carefully. And the green color in the middle is the green color we like in all our movies right now. What I would say, steel blues, green blues. And it's like, where was that coming from?

01:11
Dan Laustsen
He had been seeing something that was naturalistic, and then he painted an abstract world. And that's a little bit like we are seeing the world in the movies we are doing right now. It makes me very happy.

01:29
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 National Gallery of Denmark and the American Friends of the National Gallery of Denmark. Our goal is to celebrate Danish creatives who have made a significant mark in the US.

01:47
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
Today our guest is Dan Laustsen, a very accomplished Danish cinematographer. Welcome, Dan.

01:53
Dan Laustsen
Thank you very much. Pleasure to be here.

01:55
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
Pleasure to have you. We are currently at the London Hotel in Los Angeles. You are not a stranger to this city, or other cities around the world, for that matter. You shot the film Nightwatch here many years ago. It was a remake of a Danish film, but that is not the only film you shot here. Part of John Wick was shot here. What is your relationship to this city?

02:19
Dan Laustsen
I love Los Angeles. I think it's an amazing city. I prefer London or New York, if I can choose. But no, I think it's fantastic. The first time I was here, that was actually when we shot Nightwatch, the remake of Nightwatch, with Ole Bornedal as a director. And Weinstein brothers, later, so famous, Weinstein brothers.

02:38
Dan Laustsen
And for me it was fantastic because I never dreamed about going to the United States. I'd been shooting a lot of movies in Denmark, because that was where I'd grown up and had been a cinematographer there for many years. I didn't have a dream about the American dream, like, I wanted to go to Hollywood.

02:52
Dan Laustsen
But it just suddenly happened because Ole asked me to do the remake and I said, yeah, of course. And so for me it was like wow, coming into the American system of movie making, like Hollywood, it was like, wow, this is amazing because this is pretty cool. And everything is just bigger, and higher to the ceiling, everything is fantastic. I loved it. And I've been here a lot of times since.

03:16
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
And it was a remake of a Danish film that Ole also made in Denmark, in Copenhagen. This time you had Ewan McGregor in the leading role. Before it was Nikolaj Coster-Waldau who later on became a big star internationally. How was the process, or how were the processes different making those two films, one in Denmark, one here?

03:40
Dan Laustsen
In Denmark, the directors have a lot of power, and the budgets are much smaller. Everything is much smaller. The film crew is much tighter. So you have a stronger feeling when you're doing stuff like that in Denmark. You're much closer to everything. The stars are not really stars, but they're actors, and I think that's good.

03:56
Dan Laustsen
And of course in the United States, the stars are really stars, some of them, but it's not bad about that. It feels like you're closer, you're tighter on a small crew in Denmark. But I cannot say it's better to shoot in Denmark compared to the United States, because I've done a lot of nice movies here.

04:12
Dan Laustsen
And they're doing a lot of good movies in the United States. It's just a whole different set to make movies. Of course, the producers are much more powerful here. I think the difference actually is, what I like about the American system is everybody wants to do as good as they can. Everybody wants to go for the best.

04:28
Dan Laustsen
I haven't done movies in Denmark for some years because when I left the Danish film business, everybody was talking about money and "this is good enough." "Let's continue, this is good enough."

04:37
Dan Laustsen
I don't think that's good for the film business. I don't think that's good for a cinematographer because I'm very keen about doing everything as good as I can. When you have to be, this is good enough, it's not nice. Of course, it's a money issue.

04:49
Dan Laustsen
I've done a lot of movies in Denmark. They're really good movies. It just changed there in the early '90s. Everybody was like, this is good enough, let's continue. I think it's coming back again in Denmark. Now everybody's going for quality and have to be like, as good as it can go. That is of course nice. But I'm only working on American movies around the world right now.

05:08
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
What made you want to become a cinematographer? And you say you make movies around the world now. Did you imagine that that would be your career, that you would go abroad and make all these films?

05:20
Dan Laustsen
I didn't want to be a cinematographer at all. I was educated as a fashion photographer many years ago. When I was done with that, I was 19 or 20, maybe, I really didn't like to do it. I wanted to do something else. I wanted to be a documentary photographer. I wanted to go a National Geographic way.

05:38
Dan Laustsen
When you're a young kid from Helsingør, I spoke pretty bad English those days. I was lost in my world, I didn't know what to do. I have a big sister, Annette, and she's running me and very tough. And we were living together those days.

05:51
Dan Laustsen
And she said, I saw in the newspapers that the Danish Film School is looking for students so you can apply for the Danish Film School. And I said, thank you very much, big sister. But that's not my call. I don't care about movies. I don't like to do movies. I don't know anything about it. So why should I go that way?

06:07
Dan Laustsen
Because I wanted to be a documentary still photographer. And of course, my big sister said, don't be like that. Give it a try. I applied to the Danish Film School, and my brother in law, Samuel Rachlin, helped me to write, because I'm a pretty good photographer, but I'm not a good writer.

06:25
Dan Laustsen
He helped me to write the papers. And I sent, of course, my pictures in, and that was in '76, I think, some years ago. And film school was starting to get very high scale those days. I was sure I would never come in because a lot of people dreamed about being a cinematographer when they were 12 years old or whatever.

06:43
Dan Laustsen
So I applied to the film school and I got a letter a month later, you have to come for an interview. Of course I got super stressed because I didn't know anything about movie making. Never thought about that. So I came to the interview and they liked my pictures, they liked my approach.

06:58
Dan Laustsen
I was really straightforward, I didn't know what I was talking about. But I just like to try it. A month later I got a letter. Welcome to the Danish Film School. And then the panic of course started. Because I had no clue about what I went into.

07:11
Dan Laustsen
For the first year I was like the black sheep in the school. My other students were — we were three cinematographers, they were around eight, 10 years older than me and had been dreaming of being a cinematographer their whole life.

07:24
Dan Laustsen
I saw a film camera for the first time and said, what is this? I had no idea. I didn't know anything about it. I was like, this is panic. I'm a fighter, so you know, why not? And I think film school was fantastic. It was the best thing. Because in the still photography education, everything was like, good enough. But in the film school, we were taught in the film school, everything had to be perfect.

07:45
Dan Laustsen
And I like that approach. You have to do it as good as you can. I was growing up after three years in the school. I went out in '79 and I shot my first feature film with a Polish director, Anette Olsen, a month after I came out of the school. I've been doing that since.

08:05
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
And most people don't really know what it means to be a cinematographer. They imagine you're just behind the camera shooting. What can you tell us about what the job really entails?

08:16
Dan Laustsen
Very technical job and it's a very creative job at the same time, because you're helping a director tell the story. You have to run the crew. You want to figure out how to light the sets, how to shoot them. And of course you have to design everything together with a group of people.

08:30
Dan Laustsen
And that's the beauty of moviemaking. It's teamwork. I'm working together with a lot of people. Of course, I'm the cinematographer, I'm in charge of the look of the movie. But I'm in charge of the look of the movie together with the director.

08:40
Dan Laustsen
The director is, you can say, the captain on the ship, but nobody's sailing the ship alone. My job is to help the director tell the story with the camera movement. We're saying we are writing with a camera and painting with the lights. That should be the dream as a cinematographer.

08:56
Dan Laustsen
You have to go into very creative relationships with a director and some directors don't know too much about the technicalities and some directors know a lot about it. I think it's the best job on the planet.

09:09
Dan Laustsen
It can be very stressful because you're doing some big movies and you have to make your days and you cannot just hang around. It's like a very expensive artwork. If you're doing a $150 million movie, you have to be able to control that. And it's not like, oh, let's come back tomorrow and think about it. It's not like that.

09:26
Dan Laustsen
As a still photographer, you just take a picture. It's less stressful, I would say. You have to follow your heart when you're a cinematographer. I cannot do something I cannot see. If I cannot see a scene or see a picture, I cannot make it. It's very physical and it's very abstract at the same time.

09:43
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
What makes a good cinematographer and what makes it the best job in the world?

09:48
Dan Laustsen
What makes a good cinematographer, I think you have to adapt. You have to know to adapt to the director's story. I would say a good picture is not maybe a beautiful picture, it's a good picture. A good scene is not a beautiful scene, but it's a good scene that's telling a story.

10:05
Dan Laustsen
And of course, sometimes it's not the same, but sometimes it is. Sometimes you do something that's not pretty or beautiful, but it's very good for the scene. And that's important to understand because it's easy to make only beautiful pictures, but if it's not matching the story, it's not a good picture, I think.

10:24
Dan Laustsen
And why is it the best job in the world? It's because you're working together with very clever people all the time, and it's very creative, I think. And you just have to choose what you want to do, because you have to be close to the director. The director is your partnership and the rest of the crew as well.

10:41
Dan Laustsen
But you have to help tell the director's story. That's the most important thing. It's not me, me, me. And I think that's great about movies and especially nowadays, because everybody, after social media, is just me, me, me, me, me, it's not like that when you're doing a movie, I think. It should be us, we are doing this movie together. It's so important to have that approach.

11:02
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
One of your recent jobs was The Color Purple. It's a musical based on the book by Alice Walker. You shot this in the southern part of the US. Where exactly did you shoot it? And what were the challenges shooting a musical? I believe this was your first musical?

11:19
Dan Laustsen
It was my first musical. I shot a small scene in The Shape of Water with Guillermo Del Toro, when Sally Hawkins is dancing around there. It's very beautiful, I think. But this is my first — first of all, it's my first movie in the South, you know, in Atlanta and Savannah. We shot it down there, and I'd never been there before.

11:36
Dan Laustsen
And for me, it was like, wow, this is amazing. I love it, I love it, I love it. Because I've only been to big cities, New York, San Francisco, Los Angeles, those cities in the United States.

11:47
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
And there's a lot of culture in Savannah.

11:49
Dan Laustsen
A lot of culture, a lot of poor people, a lot of strong black people. And of course, doing a musical is another world, but it was not so different than I thought it would be, because we shot it much more like a normal movie. You can shoot musicals like in the old days with the cameras just staying out and just see the dance and all that. We didn't do that. We did that as well, but we did move the camera a lot.

12:10
Dan Laustsen
We want to be inside there. We want to be with the actors, with the dancers. We want to be a part of the ballet. The camera has to be a part of the ballet with those dancers and actors. And I think that was a big thing for us. We wanted to feel like we were in there. We wanted to feel like we were in the South. We wanted to feel the heat. We wanted to feel the darkness of the rooms, that was what we tried to do when we shot the movie. It sounds very easy, but it was like we tried to do it as good as we could.

12:37
Dan Laustsen
And again, what is difficult to be a cinematographer, the way I'm working is I'm traveling alone. I'm starting to travel with my camera assistant that's taking care of all the camera equipment. Because it's getting so technical right now, I have no idea what we're doing. But, otherwise I'm traveling alone, so I'm working together with new people on every movie, more or less. So I have to learn them how I'm thinking.

13:00
Dan Laustsen
I'm the boss, but I don't want to be the boss, but then somebody has to tell what is right and wrong. Again, we are a group of people. If somebody says to me, what about this? I could say, oh, that's a really good idea, let's go that way. I worked together with a new crew down in Atlanta, Savannah, and it was fantastic. It's a great place to shoot.

13:19
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
You have worked with one of the big masters of filmmaking, Guillermo Del Toro, several times now, on films like Crimson Peak, The Shape of Water, Nightmare Alley. Guillermo's movies are very special, and you have worked with him since Mimic in 1997.

13:37
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
What makes him special as a collaborator, as a team player, and what does that mean to you to be one of his team players on the movies that he makes? I can imagine it's special. I've met him several times, and he's a very lovely man.

13:51
Dan Laustsen
Nightwatch, that was Miramax. Miramax had to do a movie called Mimic, and he said to Guillermo, you should meet this director of photography because he's doing some cool stuff. I was not into the American system at all. I didn't want to meet anybody. I wanted to shoot the movie. I wanted to play with my kids in Santa Monica and just, whatever.

14:11
Dan Laustsen
I didn't think about that. I have learned a lot of stuff since. So I met Guillermo in a cafe, whatever, one evening after shooting. And we didn't click at all, it was like, we didn't at all, it was like, we couldn't find each other. It didn't work at all. I was coming back to my wife and said, I had this weird meeting, whatever.

14:30
Dan Laustsen
And then I think the Weinstein brothers actually said, you should do that again. So we did it again, and the next time it was like, wow. It was really weird. It was fantastic. I don't know what it was. But the second time we were just talking like we had known each other forever.

14:49
Dan Laustsen
And then of course we shot Mimic and that was a very tough production because Miramax was very rough, those guys, tough guys, old producers. And Guillermo wanted to make an art movie, and those guys wanted to do a cheap horror movie.

15:01
Dan Laustsen
So there were a lot of fights there. And I was sure I was getting fired every day because it was a very dark movie, but that's what we wanted to do. And we shot it on film those days and it was very dark and everybody's like, this is too dark, but we loved it. But I was sure I was getting fired every Friday, but I didn't.

15:16
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
What was it like working with them, those producers?

15:19
Dan Laustsen
For me, I didn't have too many problems with them, because they liked what we did, but Guillermo had a lot of issues with them. And then, of course, they liked him in the end, but they were tough guys. And I was definitely not used to that at all, because I was coming from Denmark, where everybody was like, boom billy boom billy boom billy boom.

15:37
Dan Laustsen
But they were tough guys, and Guillermo was fantastic, and he's still fantastic, and he's getting better and better, I think. I've done four movies with him and now I'm going to do Frankenstein. We are starting in prep right now in Toronto. For me, he is a master in everything.

15:50
Dan Laustsen
He knows everything. He knows exactly where he wants to go. He knows what he likes and doesn't like and he knows where we are going to help each other. And he trusts me a lot with the light and the camera angles. But mostly with the lighting of the sets, we're talking very much about that and I — seems to be better so that's good.

16:08
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
And what's it like being on his team? When he speaks about his movies, when you meet him, he's so enthusiastic. He's like a little boy who's like —

16:15
Dan Laustsen
He loves what he's doing. And that's what I love about him. That's the same with a lot of other directors, but especially with him right now. For him, there's only one thing, that's the best. There's nothing between the best and the best. He said, the only thing I don't have is time enough, but I want to do it as good as I can.

16:32
Dan Laustsen
And I think as a DP, cinematographer, it's a dream, because he's just pushing everybody, including myself, all the time. And I think that's what you have to do, as an artist, you have to push yourself to the edge of the table, or the swimming pool or wherever you are every day because you cannot go in, oh, we did that last time, let's do that again.

16:52
Dan Laustsen
I cannot do that. For me, I'm pushing myself all the time, and I like that. What I love about Guillermo and Chad, the director in John Wick, is they're only going for the best. There's no compromise.

17:02
Dan Laustsen
We are shooting forever and it has to be perfect. Of course it's a lot about money and time, but as a cinematographer, it's a dream. It's not easy. It's not walking in the park at all, but that's what I love. I love to push myself, and getting pushed too.

17:15
Dan Laustsen
And what I love about Guillermo is he's so clever. He's so smart and he knows exactly how he wants to tell the story. You have seen that on Shape of Water, for example. For my money, it's a masterpiece.

17:29
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
And as an artist, what is it like to be transported into these fantastical worlds? Try to describe what kind of worlds he created, what it means to you as an artist to be in that space.

17:41
Dan Laustsen
It's like breathing. It's not like you're thinking that you can breathe every day, but you just have to push yourself. You have to listen to what he's saying. You have to listen to where we are going. We are doing it together.

17:52
Dan Laustsen
But of course, he has a very strong idea where he wants to go and how he wants to tell the story. And again, because we have done this so many times together now, we are one to one and that is great. We have the same taste, we have the same feeling, we have the same feeling about light and camera movement and what is nice and not nice.

18:11
Dan Laustsen
Because if you don't have that as a director of photography and a director, you're running into trouble, because if I'm thinking green and he's thinking blue, it could be very difficult. And that is the beauty of working together with people that are cleverer than yourself. You're learning something new every day.

18:28
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
You were nominated for an Oscar for The Shape of Water and again for Nightmare Alley. Most of our listeners will never get a chance to attend this prestigious award show. How would you describe being part of it, and also being celebrated at an event like this?

18:45
Dan Laustsen
No, it's fantastic, of course. It's fantastic to be nominated. But it's so stressful, I don't like it. But of course it's like a big honor to be nominated for an Academy Award for a cinematographer.

18:55
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
What makes it stressful? People would think that this is the moment of your life where you're celebrated and it's glamorous and movie stars are around you and—

19:04
Dan Laustsen
Yeah, I understand that. I don't want to be — sounds like a snob, but I'm not good at being in that part of the camera. I want to be behind it. I'm not good at talking about myself as I do right now. I think it's okay, but it's not me. I'm saying 100% I love to get nominated.

19:20
Dan Laustsen
I love that. It's fantastic, but it's not the most important thing for me. Most important for me is to make a good movie. That is my goal. But of course, I would be an idiot if I said it's not nice to be recognized for your job, and in the business of filmmaking, that's your next job, of course.

19:36
Dan Laustsen
So being nominated for an Academy Award twice, that's not too bad. But I think it's better to win it, but I've never done that, so who knows.

19:44
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
It's a big honor to be nominated. It's like a win.

19:48
Dan Laustsen
It's not like I don't feel it's fantastic. I'm a little bit shy, and yeah, just a shy person that way.

19:53
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
I mentioned movie stars were attending the Academy Awards. You're used to collaborating with them. You collaborated with many amazing people: Keanu Reeves, Sean Connery, Cate Blanchett, Bradley Cooper, Sally Hawkins, just to name a few.

20:09
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
And it must be a very intimate experience as you are the one whose gaze they're aware of all the time while performing, and you represent the audience, in a way. How would you describe your relationship to actors, and are there any of the actors that you've worked with that stand out from your point of view?

20:28
Dan Laustsen
No, the actors I work with — first of all, you have to have 100% respect for the actors because the actors are coming to the set naked in their mind. They're coming in, they have to perform. It's very difficult. Of course, you can be a star, but it's still difficult because you have to perform, you have to be naked in front of the camera.

20:46
Dan Laustsen
From my point of view, you have to still tell the story with the lights. I'm not a glamor cinematographer. There has to be drama. That's what I like about lighting. That's what I like about working with Guillermo, Chad, and Ole Bornedal, Søren Kragh-Jacobsen, all those guys around the world. And now Blitz for The Color Purple.

21:04
Dan Laustsen
The light doesn't have to be dramatic, but that camera and the light have to be a part of the drama. And I think it's very important. That's what I think. And that's what I love about it. And of course, a lot of actors like that because they know I'm going to light them, maybe not beautiful, but dramatic for the story.

21:21
Dan Laustsen
And I think that's two different things. You can do a glamor shot, but maybe that's not right for the scene. It's much more important this actor looks right for the scene and not beautiful. And of course, most actors think that's right because they want to be a part of the scene and the drama.

21:38
Dan Laustsen
In the old days, you can run into some people that think their looks are a little bit not nice, beautiful. And then you have to talk about that. This is not a shampoo commercial. This is actually a drama. But most actors, they're very open and very much listen to the cinematographer because they know I'm there to help. I'm there to make the movie and them great.

21:59
Dan Laustsen
I think you have to show them much more respect than a lot of people do. People think they're coming in big limousines. But when they're on set, it's just another world. Because that is forever. You have to protect them. And you have to support them. And you have to step back. And give them the space they need.

22:18
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
When you did the John Wick films with Keanu Reeves, the director Chad made you do a lot of night shoots — John Wick action movies. I believe you did not get sleep for 18 weeks. What was this like and how far are you willing to go for the art? Not sleeping seems a bit drastic.

22:38
Dan Laustsen
John Wick was crazy, but it was fantastic. I loved it. We shot in Europe and I've shot three John Wick movies, two, three, and four. And everytime you're doing the next one, you have to push yourself, as I talked about before, you have to push everything. And John Wick, he's not living in the daytime, he has to be in the night and it was a pretty big movie.

22:56
Dan Laustsen
So we shot 18 weeks of nights in Europe and of course you're sleeping, you're just sleeping badly. And of course some people get used to it, but I don't. So you're a zombie. It's a part of the look. I cannot fight the look because I think the look is the movie.

23:12
Dan Laustsen
So it's like, I want to sleep, but I want to make a fantastic looking movie, and that is a personal thing. That's a lot of stuff that I want to be a part of making movies. Of course, when you're asking me how far do you want to go for that, there's a lot of things I don't want to do.

23:27
Dan Laustsen
I cannot say exactly what it is, but of course I have my limits about how crazy it should go. But not sleeping, that was tough. It was tough for everybody. It was tough for Keanu Reeves. He has to fight every day. He is again coming in. Super nice guy. Amazing. The nicest guy on the planet. But he is performing, fighting like crazy.

23:48
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
It's a very physical job.

23:50
Dan Laustsen
It's a super physical job. And he's not a teenager anymore. Again, for him it's only the best. He wants to do it as good as you can do it. And again, it's like you just have to follow him because he's so cool. It's teamwork. He knows he needs to be in a certain place with the marks and lights and all that. That is the beauty of these movies we are doing right now.

24:11
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
And I want to go back to the beginning again, when you made your international breakthrough. I believe you started out in France to shoot Brotherhood of the Wolf with Monica Bellucci. That must have been an amazing movie to shoot. Can you talk a little bit about that?

24:27
Dan Laustsen
Yeah, I shot a movie called Vikaren in Denmark, with Ole Bornedal. And I think the director saw that — I'm not sure, I don't remember clearly. And then Christophe Gans called me one day and said, I want to meet you. He said, come to France, and I couldn't do that because I was doing something.

24:43
Dan Laustsen
He came to Copenhagen on a Saturday and he was like, where's everybody here? He had never been to Copenhagen. He came to Copenhagen and said, where's all the people? I said, what do you mean? There's no people on the streets. This is Copenhagen.

24:56
Dan Laustsen
He came up and I was very impressed about his prep. He was like, wow. And he told me about the movie, he had a lot of storyboards. And he asked me to do the movie and that was a period, big period movie.

25:07
Dan Laustsen
The issue was, I was the only one that didn't speak French on that show. And a lot of people those days in France spoke very bad English. In the beginning it was very difficult. Because they had this feeling about, why are you bringing sand to the Sahara?

25:23
Dan Laustsen
Because they have the best DPs in the world, some of them, in France, so why are you bringing a Danish guy in, who doesn't speak French, what is this? So that was in the beginning, there was a lot of miscommunication with the crew and me, because, I think, why, who are you? And again, you have to fight a little bit for your place and I knew exactly what I wanted to do together with Christophe again.

25:45
Dan Laustsen
It was an amazing movie to do because it was a big period movie, action movie in France, with Monica Bellucci, the sweetest woman on the planet and very beautiful, but super nice. And every morning she came to me and said, Dan, make me beautiful. It was like my heart was melting, but —

26:02
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
Impossible not to.

26:04
Dan Laustsen
Exactly. But it was a big movie and we had a lot of issues with bad weather, and now I sound like a very old guy, it was before cell phones. And we were shooting the Pyrenees Mountains, so everybody got lost all the time because nobody knew where we were going, like a mess.

26:17
Dan Laustsen
But it was cool to do it, I loved it, and it was one of the biggest shooting periods I've done because a normal movie in Denmark was 40 to 50 days. But we shot for 135 days on that movie, so it was just going on forever and ever.

26:31
Dan Laustsen
And it's many years ago, and Christoph again was a very sharp director. And everybody was amazing, but there was a big language issue, because I could speak English, Christoph could speak English, my gaffer was the technical guy, my lighting master, you can say. There were a lot of issues with language, and that was not easy.

26:49
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
I can imagine. A lot of pointing.

26:52
Dan Laustsen
A lot of pointing. But again, the way I'm working, I'm traveling around alone, that is the way I'm doing it, and I don't mind it. Because then I cannot blame anybody except myself if I don't get it the way I want to have it.

27:03
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
And now that it's been so many years that you have worked abroad and you've worked on international movies, do you feel you bring anything particularly Danish to the table?

27:14
Dan Laustsen
I think I am bringing — you know, my story's from Denmark, I'm growing up in Denmark, my education's in Denmark. I think the teamwork thing is very strong in Denmark. I think — I learned that in the Film School, I think. And maybe the northern light, I'm not afraid of the darkness.

27:29
Dan Laustsen
I think that the shadows are very important and very powerful. So I think that was coming from the Danish artwork. But I think most of that is coming from what I learned in film school. Because I learned everything about moviemaking in the beginning from the school. I couldn't do anything before that. And I think that's pretty clear. I think I was a good photographer, but I was not a good cinematographer.

27:51
Dan Laustsen
So I learned all that. I learned teamwork. I learned how to tell the story with a camera, and how to light it. And I think I have the same taste as those days. I'm just getting maybe better because as some people say, you know, the more you're exercising, the better you do.

28:06
Dan Laustsen
And that's the reason you have to do it. If you want to do something, really, you have to exercise every day as much as you can. If you want to run a long marathon run, you have to exercise. That's the same with cinematography. You have to learn, you have to remember, you have to push yourself, and you cannot go walking in the park. And I think that lighting taste is from growing up in Denmark.

28:29
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
And you have worked with a lot of prominent Danish directors. You have mentioned some of them, Ole Bornedal, Søren Kragh-Jacobsen, among them. Now that you have worked a lot abroad, have you spotted something that is particularly Danish when it comes to moviemaking? Something that sets Danish films apart?

28:49
Dan Laustsen
When I was doing a lot of movies in Denmark, that's some years ago now. Of course the budgets were tighter and as a director, you have to be much more clever because you don't have a lot of money. So you have to really think about what you want to do or not do, what is important for the story, how you want to tell the story.

29:03
Dan Laustsen
And that's the same as a cinematographer because you don't have all the money in the world. For me, it was thinking practically and artistically in the same way. Because when you're shooting in Denmark, the director has to be very clear about how he or she's going to make the days because the money's very tight.

29:21
Dan Laustsen
It's a small country, it's a small language, and that's the same as cinematography. You have to think about how you want to spend your money and how you want to approach your day. And that had been a little bit bad for me the last couple of years because a lot of time I'm coming in, oh, I have to think much more practical.

29:39
Dan Laustsen
But when you're doing those bigger movies I'm doing, you have to do it as good as you can. You cannot think about the practicalities. Of course, you have to think about that a little bit, but the quality and the storytelling is more important for the director and myself because sometimes money, of course, money is always an issue.

30:00
Dan Laustsen
But when you're working with Guillermo, he doesn't care about money. Of course he does, but it's more important for him to do the right scene, compared to, are we going to have three hours overtime? Because you cannot do that in Denmark, because there's no money. There's no money for that, so you have to be done after eight hours.

30:18
Dan Laustsen
And you don't have to do that on John Wick, for example. You're shooting 16 hours for 18 weeks in a row. That's a big difference, and sometimes that's good. And sometimes it's bad, because if you're getting too practical, you're losing the artistic image. But it's give and take, it's good to think about, don't go, oh, I can only do that if the sky is red, or whatever.

30:42
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
You did the historical TV series 1864 with Ole Bornedal. What did you learn about this part of history through making this series? And would you say that you're interested in history and historical drama in general?

30:56
Dan Laustsen
Yeah, I love historical dramas. I think it's fantastic because it's a very beautiful image to do. The costumes, the sets, everything is amazing. I just like it. I think historical dramas are fantastic. 1864 was a big television show we shot in Prague. We have that issue, don't shoot a movie that has to look like winter in summertime. I learned that definitely for that show because we did that. We just have some issues because the weather was bad.

31:21
Dan Laustsen
Otherwise, Ole did a fantastic job and I love that movie a lot. I think they made some mistakes about going in because there were some people in Denmark that thought it was too left wing, and it was not historically correct. We are not making a documentary about 1864, we are making a drama.

31:38
Dan Laustsen
And this is our way, this is the way Ole and me and everybody else thought it should be told. It's not like this guy was not fat or he was slim or whatever. I think the movie we are making is the way we want to tell this story.

31:51
Dan Laustsen
For me, I don't care about what everybody else means. I'm doing this because I think it should be like that. And I think that is the artist's privilege to do that. And I think a lot of people in Denmark were a little bit like, no, this is wrong. And this is, okay, make your own movie.

32:07
Dan Laustsen
This is a movie we're making. If you don't like it, don't see it. And I think that's very important to have that approach. And I think there were a lot of issues with that. And that was a shame because I think it was a really good show, really good television, but there were a lot of people that wanted to be backseat driving and very clever about that was not historically correct.

32:26
Dan Laustsen
But it was not a documentary about 1864. It was a drama about 1864 as Ole wanted to tell that story his way. And I shot it that way and that was the way we think it should look. And I think Ole is so great because he's there to take a lot of risks. I like that.

32:42
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
And at least it got a lot of attention.

32:45
Dan Laustsen
Yeah, for sure.

32:46
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
So maybe it's not a bad thing.

32:47
Dan Laustsen
No.

32:59
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
You travel a lot, but you are still based in Denmark. What made you decide to stay there and not live in Los Angeles, or Toronto, where you shoot a lot of movies with Guillermo, for instance?

33:01
Dan Laustsen
All my friends, I'm growing up in Denmark. I have two kids, August and Barbara. Barbara's living in Copenhagen, August is living in Stockholm right now, they're growing up there. That is where my roots are.

33:12
Dan Laustsen
As a cinematographer, as an international cinematographer, let's say I was going to move to Los Angeles, all my jobs would maybe be in Toronto. Then I moved to Toronto, maybe all my jobs were going to be in London or whatever, you know. You're traveling so much around, so there's not a place that is safe. You're going to work there a lot.

33:28
Dan Laustsen
I like Copenhagen, I like Denmark, it's just, I like the Danish society, I like the way we are taking care of each other. And I like that we are paying a lot of tax because we can take care of a lot of other stuff.

33:42
Dan Laustsen
But I'm not working there. I haven't worked there for five or six years. And it's not because I don't want to work there. It just has not been like that. Because right now I'm going from one big movie to another big movie and one day I have to stop working and I have to settle down and figure it out. I like Denmark.

33:58
Dan Laustsen
I think it's where my friends are. And of course it can be a very lonely ride sometimes because you are working a lot and then you're coming home, your hotel or your apartment, in Los Angeles or Toronto or wherever you are. It can be lonely, but I don't mind my own company.

34:14
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
What is the creative environment in Denmark like?

34:18
Dan Laustsen
I think it's very cool. We have some very cool stuff. You can talk about architecture, you can talk furnitures, painters. I think coming from Denmark is very good. And again, as I said, the film school was, for me, fantastic.

34:31
Dan Laustsen
In the old days, a lot of old, nice, very nice movie makers, T. H. Dreyer and those guys, they did some fantastic movies. But again, the painters, it's cool. And the whole architect thing. I think Danish society is taking very good hand of the artists and the artwork. And of course we have some amazing museums. I like it. I really like to come back to Denmark and just walk around Copenhagen.

34:56
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
You are not a young man anymore. You are a mature man. Do you still have things on your list that you would like to achieve, career-wise, before you retire? You mentioned before that you're not going to go on forever.

35:15
Dan Laustsen
No, but I think everybody's not going on forever. And you don't know when the glass is full. It's just like, I don't know. I think there will come a day where I think, this is enough, this is enough. And maybe, knock on wood, I'm going to have good health.

35:29
Dan Laustsen
But of course it's very tough work to be a cinematographer on big movies because you're working a lot. There's a lot of responsibilities. There's a lot of stuff you have to take care of. You cannot be insecure. You have to be, this is the way we go because it's so, it's so expensive right now.

35:46
Dan Laustsen
You cannot like just drifting around. You have a very clear mind. This is the way we are going. This is the way it's going to look. And of course you can talk about all kinds of different ways to do it in pre production when you're not shooting. But when the ship is sailing or the train has left the platform, there's only one way, and you cannot stop that, and that is, of course, very stressful.

36:09
Dan Laustsen
I don't get stressed, I think. I think I'm pretty okay to do what I'm doing, and I have a clear feeling about where I want to go, together with the director, of course. And I'm sure there's coming one day where you say, this is too tough. But I don't know. I don't have that feeling right now.

36:23
Dan Laustsen
I'm going to do a big movie right now with Guillermo Del Toro called Frankenstein. If that's going to be the last one, hopefully not. Who knows? But it's a very cool story. And a classic movie. And I'm sure we can do it. He can do it, outstanding.

36:39
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
What can we expect from that film?

36:41
Dan Laustsen
I think you can expect a masterpiece. Because it's a really good story. And the way we are planning to do it, it's great. But who knows? That is, again, the beauty about movie making. But I think that's the beauty about all artwork. You never know how it is before it's done.

36:59
Dan Laustsen
Because everybody wants to do it as good as they can. But all masters are taking a step to the left or to the right sometimes, and it doesn't work. And that's the beauty of movie making. That's the scary part of movie making as well, because it's so expensive. So you have to deliver it. You have to do something people like to see. But again, moviemaking is a very expensive artwork. But I like it. I love it.

37:24
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
And my final question to you is, now that you're here in Los Angeles looking back, reflecting on your career, was there a moment where you thought, if you think about it now, if that had not happened, this whole thing would not have been, your career would have been completely different. Was there one moment that sort of changed it all?

37:44
Dan Laustsen
I would say if I didn't have the offer from Ole to go to Los Angeles. But it was pretty clear because my wife — my ex wife — the kids' mom, and we moved over here to do Nightwatch and she didn't like it. And she said, I'm not going to live in Los Angeles because it was getting a little bit —

38:02
Dan Laustsen
This is pretty cool. This is nice. You're staying in a nice house in Pacific Palisades. You have two nice cars and all that stuff we didn't have in Denmark. And she was like, Christine, she was very much, I'm not going to live here with the kids. And I was, okay, let's go, let's go back.

38:18
Dan Laustsen
And of course there was a little bit, for me, I shot Mimic then, and then I pulled out of the American market a little bit, and then they dragged me back again. But there were a couple of years where I didn't do anything over here. And that was because my career was going pretty good after Mimic. Everybody liked Mimic. But I just decided to go back, work not here so much, and then it came back again and I started to work here again.

38:44
Dan Laustsen
But I would say, it's my sister. Because you can say if she didn't have forced me into film school, I'd have been a photographer. There's nothing wrong with that, maybe. But there was my big sister Annette there, who pushed me in the beginning and said, Why don't be like that? Don't be so boring. Why not try something new?

39:01
Dan Laustsen
And I have to say, if she hadn't said that, I don't think I'd ever get into the film business. So you can say that's her fault, but then later on, it was, I'm sure if I didn't do it with Ole, I would have done it with somebody else, because I could feel it was starting there.

39:17
Dan Laustsen
Those days it was very difficult to get in here, because the union was so strong. There were a lot of difficulties to get into the American market as a cinematographer. But Nightwatch was breaking the ice there. But I will say Annette, my sister, was, she pushed me.

39:31
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
Annette and Ole Bornedal. Well, thank you so much for talking to us here in Los Angeles, Dan. We really appreciate it.

39:40
Dan Laustsen
It was a fun thing. Thank you very much.

39:43
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
For today's episode, Dan Laustsen chose Henri Matisse'S Portræt af Madame Matisse: Den Grønne Stribe or Portrait of Madame Matisse: The Green Line from 1905 from the collection of the National Gallery of Denmark.