<http://schema.org/articleBody>
"\n\n Nikolaj Coster-Waldau sounds a little tired, and it's hard to blame him. Now that the second season of Game of Thrones has wrapped, he's filming a sci-fi flick with Tom Cruise down in Baton Rouge, one so top-secret he could only affirm that he was, in fact, playing a character named Sykes. He's also wrapped on the mysterious horror film Mama with Jessica Chastain; with Guillermo del Toro attached as a producer, you know it will be a stylish creeper. (You can watch the short film Mama was based on here.)\n\n Coster-Waldau's newest film Headhunters has been turning heads on the festival circuit, and the buzz was so loud that Summit acquired the rights to adapt its source material, a novel by Jo Nesb, into an English-language movie last October. The striking Dane plays Clas, a very rich ecutive with a dangerous past and a valuable work of art that's caught the eye of Roger Brown (Aksel Hennie), a headhunter by day and art thief by night. Roger has something Clas wants, and Clas is prepared to do anything to get it.\n\n When he's not playing a psychopathic ex-soldier or a noble with more than brotherly love for his twin sister, Coster-Waldau is a rather unassuming chap. And yes, there are some things he just won't do on camera.\n\n\n\nGQ: So, it seems that all of Roger's problems stem from insecurity about his height. As a tall guy, are men ever threatened by you?\n\n Nikolaj Coster-Waldau: No, I don't think so. I mean, no one has ever told me. But I guess we all have insecurities, and most of them are ridiculous. Of course, with Roger it's the extreme.\n\nGQ: Do you think that being in the land of the midnight sun influences the dark movies and books that have been coming out of Scandinavia?\n\n Nikolaj Coster-Waldau: I mean, I guess it's always been there. I remember when I was a kid telling stories, but I think that's everywhere... It's not so much the midnight sun. It's more the darkness in the winter, when you get so little sunlight. But I also think there's something about these Scandinavian countries that are so low-functioning. Sometimes it reminds me of, do you remember Twin Peaks? Did you ever watch that show, David Lynch, the television series?\n\nGQ: Yeah.\n\n Nikolaj Coster-Waldau: It was very successful in Scandinavia, I think because it reminded us of ourselves. This perfect surface, and underneath there's all this horrible human nature, I guess.\n\nGQ: My friend who is Finnish told me that there's sort of a rivalry between the countries. For instance, the Swedes and the Finns. Do you have any experience with that?\n\n Nikolaj Coster-Waldau: Yeah, I think the Swedes and the Danes as well. And of course, the Norwegians\u2014I mean, we all kind of hate the Norwegians because they got away with the oil, so they have all this extreme wealth we all envy. But also I think it's a very friendly rivalry. I mean, to be honest, we're not in the English/Irish category at all.\n\nGQ: Roger Brown is terrified of dogs. Do you have any similar irrational phobias? I know he is scared of your dog.\n\n Nikolaj Coster-Waldau: When I was a kid I was always afraid of small dogs, because they always seemed like the ones that would attack. Either they wanted to bite you or they wanted to fuck you, and I didn't like that. And the irony, of course, [is that] my family, we have two dogs and they're two tiny, little, very sweet dogs. What else? Small spaces; I'm not good with small spaces. But animals, no. Snakes? No, I don't like\u2014I think it's kind of the usual suspects.\n\nGQ: Let's talk about Mama. Are you like the big, bad wolf, creeping around in the woods?\n\n Nikolaj Coster-Waldau: No, no. He's a... Well, I play twins. I actually play two guys. You could say they're very different men. One of them is\u2014I shouldn't give anything away. But no, I'm not a bad guy. I mean, not one of the guys.\n\nGQ: Have you finished reading A Song of Ice and Fire yet?\n\n Nikolaj Coster-Waldau: No, I haven't. I know what's going to happen more or less, but I kind of wait. I read after we've got the script. Then I can read the book, but I don't want to know too much before. I don't want to sit there going, \"Why didn't they pick that scene? What about that?\" Because they have to make some cuts to the story. It works really well for me that my main source is Jaime in the scripts, and then Jaime in the books will inform that character, not the other way around.\n\nGQ: Well, I love the show and I'm afraid to read the books now, because I don't want to spoil anything. So you don't actually know if you're going to die or not? I couldn't believe when they killed off Sean Bean's character [Ned Stark].\n\n Nikolaj Coster-Waldau: [Laughs] I know, it was great to see the response, because I was surprised that it was so\u2014people were really upset about it. I guess because you work on it, you almost forget. You knew it was a big deal, but you didn't think it was going to be that big. But yeah, it's great, and it doesn't stop there. I guess you never know what's going to happen, and that's a nice feeling.\n\nGQ: I saw a video of Lena Headey talking about fans' reactions to her personally, and how basically people are like, \"You're such a bitch.\"\n\n Nikolaj Coster-Waldau: [Laughs] I haven't had that. I was a little worried because of what happened, especially in episode one of the show where I push the kid out the window, that I was going to get a bit of anger, but no, I've been very lucky. People have been very friendly, smiling [laughs]. It's probably an old gender thing. It's okay for a guy to be a baddie, but a woman? No, we can't deal with that.\n\nGQ: As a European, do you think it's odd that American audiences focus so much more on the sex and the sexual taboos and the incest in Game of Thrones?\n\n Nikolaj Coster-Waldau: The thing is, Europeans like to think that we don't think about that, but it's no different, really. I guess you talk a lot more about it, but the fact is, we don't have shows with that much sex. I mean, it really wouldn't happen back home. We see your shows here, like the cable shows, and we kind of go, \"Oh, my God! It's porn. What the hell is going on?\"\n\nGQ: It's also very violent, and it seems like people are almost more interested in the sex than the violence.\n\n Nikolaj Coster-Waldau: I know, it's surprising. What does surprise me is that still today in normal network shows or in the movies, it's still okay to kill someone or cut them up, but God forbid you show a piece of a breast or something. Then you're going to scar your kid for life\u2014but you can kill people, you can mutilate them, and it's fine. It's a weird contradiction, I think.\n\nGQ: People think of you as a really handsome Danish badass. What would they be surprised to find out about you?\n\n Nikolaj Coster-Waldau: Well, uh, that's it, that's the end of the story. I don't know why I would want to add to that [laughs]. There are a thousand things that would probably not surprise, just bore people. There's nothing exceptional about me, but there's something exceptional about Jaime Lannister, and I think that's what's interesting. Or with Clas from Headhunters. He's also pretty interesting and crazy.\n\nGQ: He's terrifying. Who knew that getting a job was so ruthless?\n\n Nikolaj Coster-Waldau: [Laughs] I know, that's what I love about that movie... When I watch the movie with an audience, there's that moment in the beginning when you're not quite sure what kind of movie it is. Can you laugh? Is it okay? And then when you get out there and he literally dives into the pool of shit, you kind of feel, oh, it's okay to laugh, actually, because it's so over the top. But I think it's a very good study of how males work and think, and how we're still cavemen.\n\nGQ: Well, it's definitely two alpha males going up against each other.\n\n Nikolaj Coster-Waldau: Two guys who really want to be alpha males, that's for sure.\n\nGQ: Would you ever do a romantic comedy? Are you looking for a break from all this intense stuff?\n\n Nikolaj Coster-Waldau: Yeah, absolutely. I think with Mama, even though it's a thriller, it's a very different kind of character. And yeah, absolutely, as any actor, you want to do as varied characters as possible, so I'm looking. But at the end of the day, it's all about finding good scripts.\n\nGQ: Do you find that these intense parts are mostly the kind that you're offered right now?\n\n Nikolaj Coster-Waldau: This past six months there's been a lot of dark characters, and they're great. It's fun to play those guys, because often they carry a lot of secrets. It's fun to dive into, because we all have those thoughts, we all carry those dark sides, but we don't act on it. I also think that's why you like to watch those characters, because it gives you relief just to see someone act on those impulses.\n\nGQ: Is there anything that's like, \"Okay, that crosses the line\"?\n\n Nikolaj Coster-Waldau: A while back I was offered this\u2014and it just was not for me\u2014it was a great script, but it was a guy who molested a kid, and I couldn't even finish the script. I couldn't do that, I guess because I'm a father myself and just the idea is just too... I wouldn't be able to survive a shoot like that."^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.gq.com/story/nikolaj-coster-waldau-jaime-lannister-game-of-thrones-headhunter>