Early life

Coster-Waldau was born in Rudkøbing, Denmark, the son of Hanne Søborg Coster, a librarian, and Jørgen Oscar Fritzer Waldau (died 1998). He has spoken in interviews about his father's problems with alcohol, as well as his parents' divorce. He has two older sisters, and was raised mainly by his mother. He grew up in Tybjerg, a small village between Ringsted and Næstved in southern Zealand.

Career

Coster-Waldau was the youngest actor to enter the Danish National School of Theatre and Contemporary Dance (Danish: Statens Teaterskole), where he was educated from 1989 to 1993. He made his stage debut as Laertes in Hamlet at the Betty Nansen Theater. His role in the film Nightwatch (1994) brought him fame in his native country. He then went on to play in Simon Staho’s Wildside (1998), which he also cowrote, and starred in Danish films such as Misery Harbour (1999). He made his British debut alongside Clive Owen, Jude Law and Mick Jagger in Bent (1997).

In 2001, he began his U.S. career in Ridley Scott's Black Hawk Down as Medal of Honor recipient Gary Gordon. Coster-Waldau says "My first U.S. movie was Black Hawk Down and a friend helped me put myself on tape up on the attic over my apartment in Copenhagen. We shipped it out and I got lucky."

Nikolaj has used his success to take roles on both sides of the Atlantic, particularly his native Scandinavia.

He next landed a lead role in Michael Apted's Enigma and also appeared as a villain in the action film My Name is Modesty (based upon the Modesty Blaise comic strip). Scott brought Coster-Waldau back for his 2005 film Kingdom of Heaven. Richard Loncraine, who cast the actor in Wimbledon in 2004, cast him in Firewall two years later, in 2006. In 2007 he played John Amsterdam, an immortal New York homicide detective who will become mortal after he finds his true love, in the short-lived Fox TV drama series New Amsterdam. As a result of filming that series' pilot, Coster-Waldau obtained his Screen Actors Guild card. He later recalled in a 2015 interview in TV Guide, "Finally getting my SAG card was huge for me...I got excited I went straight to the SAG online shop and bought four mugs with SAG logo. still have those mugs!"

Since April 2011, Coster-Waldau has played Jaime Lannister on HBO's hit series Game of Thrones, based on George R. R. Martin's best-selling A Song of Ice and Fire fantasy novel series. He commented about the character "What's not to like about Jaime? As an actor I couldn't ask for a better role". In 2011, he also starred alongside Sam Shepard in Mateo Gil’s feature Blackthorn and in Morten Tyldum’s Headhunters.

Coster-Waldau starred in the 2013 horror film Mama alongside Jessica Chastain. He went on to play Sykes, a military weapons expert in the science fiction action thriller film Oblivion. The same year he co-starred with Juliette Binoche in Erik Poppe's drama A Thousand Times Good Night. In 2014, he starred in Susanne Bier's Danish thriller A Second Chance as Andreas, a police officer forced to make a difficult choice. In 2016, Coster-Waldau appeared in the action-fantasy film "Gods of Egypt" as Horus, an Egyptian God of the Air who loses both his eye and seeks revenge to the death of his parents.

He has been confirmed to star in Roman Waugh's upcoming prison film Shot Caller. He is also set to star in Danish 3 Things, a thriller about a prime suspect of a bank robbery who negotiates the terms of his witness protection deal. In 2017 he is set to star in the psychological thriller Spinning Man, the US debut of his fellow Dane director Peter Flinth as well as in E.L. Katz's dark comedy Small Crimes.

Personal life

Coster-Waldau married Nukâka, a Greenlandic actress and singer, in 1998, and they live in Kongens Lyngby with their two children, daughters Filippa (born October 2000) and Safina (born November 2003), as well as two dogs.

Filippa has starred in a Danish short film, The Girl and the Dogs, which was shown at the Cannes Film Festival in 2014.

His father-in-law is Josef Motzfeldt, a member of the Parliament of Greenland and former leader of the Community of the People party.

Filmography

Film

Year	Title	Role	Notes
1994	Nightwatch	Martin Bork
1997	Bent	Wolf
1997	Hemmeligheder	Mads
1998	Wildside	Ossy	Also writer
1998	Nattens engel	Frankie
1999	The Cable Club	Rocker
1999	Misery Harbour	Espen Arnakke
2000	På fremmed mark	Holt
2001	Enigma	Puck
2001	Black Hawk Down	Gary Gordon
2002	24 Hours in the Life of a Woman	Anton
2003	Stealing Rembrandt	Kenneth
2003	The Bouncer	Svend
2004	My Name Is Modesty	Miklos
2004	The Good Cop	Sune
2004	Wimbledon	Dieter Prohl
2005	Kingdom of Heaven	Village Sheriff
2005	The Headsman	Martin
2006	Firewall	Liam
2006	Triple Dare	Martin
2007	The Baker	Bjorn
2007	Wonderful and Loved by All	Micke
2007	The Early Years: Erik Nietzsche Part 1	Sammy
2008	The Kautokeino Rebellion	Biskop Juell
2008	Himmerland	Thomas	Also co-producer
2009	At World's End	Severin Geertsen
2011	Blackthorn	James Jovin
2011	Headhunters	Clas Greve
2012	Aurum		Executive producer
2013	Mama	Lucas / Jeffrey Desange
2013	Oblivion	Sykes
2013	A Thousand Times Good Night	Marcus
2014	The Other Woman	Mark King
2014	A Second Chance	Andreas
2014	Upstart		Executive producer
2014	Livsforkortelses Ekspert		Producer
2015	Klovn Forever	Himself	Cameo
2016	Gods of Egypt	Horus
2016	Shot Caller		Post-production
2016	3 Things	Mikael	Post-production

Television

Year	Title	Role	Notes
1993	Slaget på tasken	Christian	Television film
1995	Who's Hitler?	Nattevagten	Television short
1995	Lyse tider		Television short
1997	Jacobs liste	Jacob	Television film
2000	Lock, Stock...	Jordi	2 episodes
2006	Filthy Gorgeous	Alex	Television film
2008	New Amsterdam	John Amsterdam	8 episodes
2009	Virtuality	Commander Frank Pike	Television film
2009-10	The Left Wing Gang	Jan Weimann	5 episodes
2011-present	Game of Thrones	Jaime Lannister	Main Role Empire Hero Award Nominated—People Choice Awards Favorite TV Anti-Hero Nominated—Critics' Choice Television Award for Best Supporting Actor in a Drama Series Nominated—Satellite Award for Best Supporting Actor - Series, Miniseries or Television Film Nominated—Scream Award for Best Ensemble Nominated—Saturn Award for Best Supporting Actor on Television Nominated—Screen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Performance by an Ensemble in a Drama Series
2015	Saturday Night Live	Jaime Lannister	Episode: "Taraji P. Henson/Mumford & Sons"

[ Source: Wikipedia ]