Nikolaj Coster-Waldau likes playing people who keep secrets. The 52-year-old Danish actor, who rose to fame for his portrayal of regicidal bad boy Jaime Lannister in Game of Thrones, says, “I think it’s interesting, the whole question of ‘Can you be truthful and sincere, honest with your emotions [and keep secrets]. And then the other question is: is it even possible to be 100 per cent transparent with a partner?”
Coster-Waldau is testing this out in a new series in The Last Thing He Told Me, an Apple TV+ show based on the bestselling book about a married couple torn apart by some whopping great skeletons in the husband’s closet. Coster-Waldau plays smooth talking family man and tech finance bro Owen, who goes missing at the end of the first episode and it’s up to his wife and daughter, Hannah and Bailey (Jennifer Garner and Angourie Rice), to piece it all together.
It’s not the first time Coster-Waldau has played the duplicitous husband – he was a cheating, fraud-committing scumbag in The Other Woman in 2014 – and it’s not the first time he’s played a such smooth talker either, what with his eight years spent as silver-tongued Jaime Lannister and, before that, his stint as enigmatic homicide detective John Amsterdam in Fox series New Amsterdam.
“Owen is a man of mystery,” he says about his new series when we speak over Zoom – he is in Greenland, the home country of his wife Nukâka Coster-Waldau, an actress, singer and former Miss Greenland. “I’m drawn to characters with secrets.”
Throughout the series, Owen’s true motives are not only hidden from his family, but from the audience, leaving viewers to guess whether he’s a goodie or a baddie for the majority of the show, which Coster-Waldau says was a “fun little exercise”.
The actor was careful to play Owen as though it could go either way because “a lot of his scenes are other people’s memories,” he says. “Early on we did some scenes and I was like, ‘Why is he so good in this? He’s almost too nice,’ but then you realise that, of course, it’s Hannah’s memory of falling in love with this guy, and when you fall in love with someone they are just perfect.”
On the surface, smooth-talking, handsome, family-oriented Owen seems pretty perfect – not the first time he’s played such a role. So has Coster-Waldau’s enviable bone structure and Scandi charm led him into a bit of a trap? And would he not love to play against type? “Yes, yes I would,” Coster-Waldau laughs, adding he has done that in the past. “I think it’s time to revisit the maniacs.”
While Garner’s screentime and star power meant Coster-Waldau was second billing on the credits, his role as Jaime Lannister still provokes huge fervour from fans around the world. Lannister was one of the few main characters to survive the show’s eight season run, meaning that he felt the full impact of the Game of Thrones mania machine (the average weekly audience for Game of Thrones over its final season was 6.15 million in the UK and it’s been named the best TV show of the 21st century multiple times).
Lannister can still inspire strong emotions in fans, it seems. Recently, while filming in Tanzania, he was sitting at a bus stop during a break, when a man came running towards him, screaming. “He’s in complete shock, because he sees what looks very much like Jaime Lannister from Game of Thrones, and he keeps saying, ‘What are you doing here?! What are you doing here?!’ He’s so emotional.”
Sometimes the fan interactions are a little closer to home. Or actually at home. “I had a guy recently who came to my house to help me build this shed,” Coster-Waldau says. “A very nice guy, his name is Bill. And one day in the summer he’s wearing shorts and I saw Daenerys [Targaryan, played by Emilia Clarke on the show] tattooed on his calf, so I was like, ‘Oh, you like Game of Thrones?’ and he was a little shy about it, but then he pulled up the other leg of his shorts and there I was!”
Fans needn’t feel shy about their obsession, though – Coster-Waldau is a fanboy in his own way, just for Leeds United instead of fantasy TV shows. An unlikely fan of the club, he got into football thanks to his dad, Jørgen, who was an Arsenal fan. Jørgen hoped his son might become a Gooner himself, but a trip to Leeds’ Elland Road stadium in the Nineties proved indelible for Coster-Waldau, who was an instant convert to the club.
While it still takes people by surprise, Coster-Waldau’s love for Leeds feels a little less out of place now thanks to a renewed interest in English football abroad. Ted Lasso brought Premier League “soccer” games stateside and actors Ryan Reynolds and Rob McElhenney’s unexpected purchase of Welsh National League club Wrexham has proved wildly successful, with the documentary about the show proving a hit.
So, would Coster-Waldau do a Ryan Reynolds if he got the chance? “No, no, by God no,” he says, “I mean – it would be amazing, but imagine a club that’s owned by its fans, like Barcelona. The money aspect of the Premier League is so out of control already, I find it sad that a family, or most people, can’t afford a season ticket anymore.”
Luckily, Coster-Waldau has a lot more faith in his own industry than the Premier League, highlighting some positive changes in recent years. As well as the “easy” production process of The Last Thing He Told Me, he took solace in just how many women were involved from it being made by Reese Witherspoon’s production company (which is responsible for Gone Girl, Big Little Lies and Daisy Jones & The Six among others) and how, on screen, Garner or Rice were almost always centre stage.
While Coster-Waldau’s character is the show’s antagonist, men don’t really talk to each other in the series, like a reverse Bechdel test. “Progress is being made,” he says, “gently, the quality is getting better. It’s still not where it should be, but I have two daughters and I am glad it’s heading in the right direction.”
