Celebrity Biographies
Ulrich Thompson
In a better world, perhaps he would be more well known. Because he is an actor whose face conveys a rich inner life, but of course, he is not Anglo-Saxon nor is he the classic handsome man, and that matters. He also flees from all histrionics, which does not prevent him from being tremendously expressive.
Ulrich Thomsen was born in Fyn, Denmark, on December 6, 1963. After three attempts, he managed to enter the Danish National School of Contemporary Theater and Dance between 1989 and 1993, where he trained as an actor, and after graduating he went through various theater companies in Copenhagen. . His film debut the following year was in a notorious thriller, The Nightwatchman , directed by fellow countryman Ole Bornedal , but his role was not especially memorable.
The first filmmaker to give him a role worthy of the name was Thomas Vintenberg, in De største helte (1996). There he was one of the bank robbers who are on the run from justice, accompanied by his teenage daughter. The hard features of the actor’s face, along with something that transmits sensitivity, helped to create a stupendous composition; it is not surprising that two years later Vintenberg required him for the “dogmatic” Celebration , where he was the main son of a family that gathers to celebrate the patriarch’s 60th birthday, a meeting from which sparks will soon fly. Of course, the actor’s compatriot directors would come to him after seeing him excel on the screen, some of them were Per Fly , who required him toThe Inheritance (2003), and especially Susanne Bier , who gave him two wonderful roles, that of Brothers (2004), where the disappearance of a brother in Afghanistan, leads to the love affair of the other with the widow, and that of a widower who fails to get along with his son in the Oscar-winning In a Better World (2010). For him, acting is executing a series of actions, one after the other, just as they are written in the script, and he sets about it tenaciously, intellectually, without “methods” that distort the final result.
But Thomsen has not limited himself to working within the limits of his country’s cinematography. Knowing English and German, he has also worked using these languages. Being a foreigner made him the ideal villain in the Bond saga in The World Is Never Enough (1999), and the following year he made The Weight of Water , one of Kathryn Bigelow ‘s weakest films . He also had no luck working with the prestigious Chinese filmmaker Chen Kaige , Gently Kills Me (2002) was a grossly sexually charged thriller.
In her international adventure, and although her role was not the main one, Deliciosa Martha (2001), shot in German, stands out. Instead, although it is titled The German Inventor (2004), Thomsen works in English in this drama about a scientist who experiments with rockets. The truth is that the professionalism of the actor is beyond doubt, and he is required for small roles in multiple productions, action and espionage, such as Hitman (2007), Duplicity (2009) and The International (Shadow money) ( 2009). He plays the same role as a Templar knight –The Kingdom of Heaven (2005) – as a Pictish warrior –Centurion ( 2010) –, and if he plays, he plunges into The Time of Witches (2011). He will soon be seen as an intrigued scientist inThe Thing , remake of John Carpenter ‘s The Thing .