Pilou Asbæk: ‘I didn’t know what I had with Borgen’

Pilou Asbæk is best known for his role as Kasper Juul, the spin doctor in the political drama Borgen. A War, his third collaboration with acclaimed Danish director – and writer on Borgen – Tobias Lindholm is out next month. The film is Lindholm’s gripping “stab at processing Denmark’s presence in Iraq and Afghanistan”. Asbæk plays Claus Pedersen, the commanding officer of a company of Danish soldiers on duty in an Afghan province, where an attack by the Taliban leads to him being accused of a war crime and put on trial back home. Denmark has entered A War for the 2016 Oscars in the best foreign language film category.

You’ve worked a lot with Tobias Lindholm…
I owe the guy a couple of pints. I did some theatre straight out of school and it wasn’t anything spectacular at all. I was a clown in an amusement park, people would throw beer cans at me – it was the least glamorous job I have ever had. We met on my debut film R [a prison drama] and then he persuaded DR, which is like the Danish BBC, that they needed to audition me for the part of Kasper in Borgen. We did a second film called A Hijacking about a ship that gets hijacked by Somali pirates. And now A War. You can see there is a [shared] theme in all three films – they are all about men in closed rooms. With A War he wanted to make a war film that was more nuanced, to make something in that area that was enlightening.

By the way, all the names he uses in his films are people he has met. It’s a funny detail. Every single name he has used… Claus Pedersen was one of his old graffiti friends.

Why do you think you work so well together?
We have this “no friends on court” thing, which means that when we work we work. It’s a collaboration but we yell, we fight. We’re not slapping each other’s backs and saying “you’re wonderful, you’re a genius”. If I want to have my scene the way I want, I’m fighting for it, and if he wants it the way he wants, he has to fight for it. I think that’s the energy you see in our films. We push each other.

Some of the cast in A War were real soldiers. What was that like?
It’s going to sound like a bit of a cliche but I felt like I was the amateur. They knew the territory. Every single soldier in that film has been based in Afghanistan at one point in their career. We did a couple of tests and Tobias was like “all right, all right, what the fuck are we going to do?”. Then this guy turned up called the Wolf. What a military name! It’s a cliched world, and a masculine one, but that’s how it is. The Wolf took me on a boot camp on and off for three months.

I had to feel that I was a leader. I’m not a natural leader. If you see me in a room I’m the guy standing in a corner hiding. I’m not an alpha male. That was the challenge with Claus, to convince myself that I could be this leader of a military group. Most actors – 99% – don’t believe that it is possible to get peace through war. I don’t believe that it is possible either but now I have a more nuanced view on it. I have the deepest, deepest respect for these guys who are actually fighting for democracy in countries far away.

Do you miss Kasper?
I actually spoke to [Borgen creator] Adam Price a couple of weeks ago and said we should do Borgen the movie. To be honest I didn’t know what I had. I didn’t know what Borgen was until it was finished and if I regret one thing in my career it’s not going 100% in the third season [his role in season three was much reduced]. I wanted to do theatre. I wanted to do ego stuff. They wanted me – he’s an interesting character – but it was my choice. At the time my artistic dilemma was that the character was finished, he had completed his circle, but you can always figure something out. I was so stubborn, I was stupid. I have written to the producers to say that was a mistake.

Your parents own an art gallery. Did you have an arty upbringing?
No, no. Because I was raised with a French mother, I had the exact opposite. I had a very controlled, strict, responsible upbringing. And the reason I had that was because my parents had a gallery and there were hippy people all over the place. If you’ve got hippy people and you want a hippy upbringing, it’s cheese with cheese. You need contrast.

They must be proud of you?
Proud is a weird word. I could have been whatever I wanted to be and, as long as I was happy, they would have been proud. But my father called me a couple of months after I got into acting school and said: “How’s it going with your hobby?” I was like: “You bastard!” I actually got into one of the most difficult schools in Copenhagen, in Denmark. But then he got older. More soft. And I got more tough and we met in the middle.

You hosted Eurovision. Do you have other ambitions outside of acting?
I have no ambitions at all! I have none… seriously. I want to be a good father. I want to be a good husband. I want to be a good son, a good brother, a good family member. I don’t have any ambition to direct a film or write a play. I like acting.

Next year you’re going to be on TV in Game of Thrones and in cinemas playing Pontius Pilate in Ben-Hur. Will you still do indie work?
I love Game of Thrones. It’s weird being part of something when you’ve been a fan. I can’t talk about my character [Euron Greyjoy], they are very strict. I also loved being in Ben-Hur with Morgan Freeman and Jack Huston. These are dreams come true. But I’m never ever going to give up doing small European stuff.

How famous are you in Denmark?
It’s getting there. Though you could be Michael Jackson and walk down the street here. Well not Michael Jackson, because he’s dead. Well you could have been Michael Jackson and walked down the street in Copenhagen and people would have gone, “Oh, there’s Michael Jackson”, and moved on. They’re extremely cool.

What do you do when you’re not working?
I wish I could say reading books, but I’m so superficial! I wish I could say seeing art, going to exhibitions, but I like football. I support FC Copenhagen. I like minimalism – go to football, go home, read my script, kiss my wife and my little girl and go to bed. Every single day is so full of emotions. I like simple stuff. I like habit. I think it’s a boarding school thing.

Will you be in Copenhagen for Christmas?
No, I’m going to go to Rome. I like the warm weather. My mother-in-law is there. It means a lot to my wife [Danish playwright Anna Bro] to spend Christmas with her. As long as Agnes [his daughter] is there I don’t care. That’s where my heart is.

A War is in cinemas from 8 January