Danish Originals

Gladsaxe-born-and-raised Danish-Pakistani film and television producer ASGER HUSSAIN shares his path from Copenhagen to New York to Los Angeles, where early on in New York, he began his producing career working for director Lee Daniels and on the Oscar-winning film Precious in 2010. Asger recalls his single most rewarding experience producing Five Fingers of Marseilles (2017), and articulates the difference between film and t...

Los Angeles-based Danish photographer GREGERS HEERING arrived in Los Angeles in the 2000s for the American Film Institute, and found his artistic calling in the poetry of still photography. Gregers retraces his journey, and describes seminal projects along the way, photographing homicide detectives in the South (2008), children in Western Greenland (2009), The Royal Danish Ballet (2009–2014), and life onboard a Maersk cargo ship (2...

Århus-born, Los-Angeles-based Danish Group Design Director AGNETE OERNSHOLT retraces her Graphic Design journey from her namesake Design studio and LEGO in Copenhagen to her bi-coastal team at Walt Disney Company's in-house creative agency Yellow Shoes Creative Group. Agnete, a self-described design-system geek and typography nerd, talks about LA as a creative mecca, and how she draws inspiration from art, music, and old Hollyw...

In Los Angeles to meet up with her management team, Wyoming-based Danish-Congolese actor, writer, producer, dancer and 2008 Miss Denmark, MARIA STEN plays Frances Neagley in the tv series Reacher and is a writer on the tv series Big Sky. In a wide-ranging interview, Maria talks about growing up in Denmark and her professional path in the US as a highly motivated and disciplined artist and a mixed-race one.

Maria selects a work by Ni...

From his Copenhagen studio, Møn-born Danish artist BJØRNSTJERNE CHRISTIANSEN recalls growing up with two experimental artists as his parents. Bjørnstjerne shares how he co-founded SUPERFLEX in 1993 with Jakob Fenger and Rasmus Rosengren Nielsen, and talks about some of the art collective's Copenhagen and international collaborative projects that bring to light a wide range of societal issues with play and humor.

Bjørnstjerne sel...

From Glendale, Los Angeles, in his home where he has lived since 2005, Danish musician and animator JØRGEN KLUBIEN talks about his parallel artistic paths, as a singer who rose to fame in Denmark with his band Danseorkestret in the 1980s, and as an animator with Disney Studios, where he made a mark on all the iconic films, from The Little Mermaid, The Lion King, Pocahontas, Mulan<...

From his home in the Pacific Palisades in Los Angeles, Danish-American mountaineer and writer FINN-OLAF JONES describes growing up in Stevns, Denmark and Wayzata, Minnesota, surrounded by his American father's library and Danish art collection by Skagen Painters. Finn-Olaf talks about his latest project of completing the Seven Summits, as he reached the peaks of the highest mountains on each of the seven traditional conti...

From her home in Copenhagen, Robert-nominated Danish actor, writer, stand-up comedian, television host, and author METTE LISBY recalls her 12-year residence in Los Angeles, which followed a five-year stay in London, as a period of positivity and possibility. From her time as a pioneer female stand-up comic in the early 1990s to her current book projects, Mette shares how it's all been a journey of learning and of gatherin...

From his Los Angeles home, Danish artist and Oscar-winning film producer BENNI KORZEN, who left Copenhagen for New York in 1964, talks first about his 200 or so abstract color paintings and collages that surround him. Benni recalls his Oscar win for Best Foreign Film for the Danish production Babette's Feast (1987), a 1960 documentary with CBS about the historic 1943 rescue of 95% of Danish Jews (of which he was one) to Sweden,...

From her home studio in the middle of Nørrebro in Copenhagen, Manila-born Danish-Filipino artist LILIBETH CUENCA RASMUSSEN recalls falling in love with art at her first exhibition as an exchange student in the US. Lilibeth talks about identity and performativity in art, the unique space of video and performance, as well as the challenges as a brown, female artist in the Danish and international art scene. And she shares her thought...

From his new restaurant Ilis in Greenpoint, Brooklyn in New York City, Michelin-starred Danish chef MADS REFSLUND talks about the central role of the root cellar and the rethinking of the front of house and back of house model where the chefs are also the ones talking with diners about the food. Mads, a co-founder of Copenhagen's world renowned Noma, additionally shares memories about his start in New York and the influence of ...

Danish actress JOSEFINE LINDEGAARD talks about her latest role as Greta on Zack Synder's Rebel Moon — Part 2, The Scargiver (2024), filmed in Santa Clarita just north of Los Angeles. Having grown up in Hellerup, Denmark and Warsaw, Poland, and arriving in New York and in Los Angeles in her late teens, Josefine recalls the small film roles in big projects, such as A Man Named Otto (2022) — and describes her path and her co...

From his summer house and studio outside of Copenhagen, Odense-born Danish actor CLAES BANG recalls his experience making the satirical black comedy The Square that won the Palme d'Or at the 2017 Cannes Film Festival, and the myriad of interesting projects that have found him since, including the newly launched tv series The New Look about World War II and modern fashion. And Claes talks about making music as an antidote to his...

Coming off of The Color Purple (2023), Helsingør-born Oscar-nominated Danish cinematographer DAN LAUSTSEN talks about shooting the musical in Savannah, Georgia. Dan describes his work as both technical and creative with the sole goal to help the director tell the story, and retraces his steps from the National Film School of Denmark in the '70s, to working in the U.S with directors Ole Bornedal, Guillermo del Toro, Chad Stahels...

From her studio in Glendale, Los Angeles, where she made her home about 10 years ago, florist TRINE DAHL KLUBIEN talks about her path from a flower shop on Pistolstræde in Copenhagen to one in Los Angeles, where she is sought after for her characteristic Scandinavian-California aesthetic, and where she works with a wide range of clients including Hollywood household names. Trine talks about the personal nature of the flower b...

Los Angeles-based, Emmy-winning Danish musician and music producer JOACHIM SVARE has seen the changes in the music industry, and especially the recording industry, over the decades. Joachim shares his thoughts on the community of Danish musicians he helped build in Studio City when he first arrived in the early '90s to his current work scoring for film and tv, in particular preschool animation, a highlight being an Emmy w...

Allerød-born Danish car designer and entrepreneur HENRIK FISKER left Denmark at age 20 to pursue his dream of becoming a car designer. He trained in Switzerland, left his legacy at Aston Martin and BMW, and has called LA home since 2000. Now focused exclusively on electric vehicles, at Fisker Inc. headquarters in Manhattan Beach just outside of Los Angeles, Henriks shares his vision to make the world's most sustainable ve...

At the Honorary Danish Consulate in Los Angeles, Funen-born Danish pastor ANNE-GRETHE KROGH NIELSEN, who first arrived in 2004, talks about being inclusive and visionary as she serves an international as well as locally diverse congregation in a cultural environment of multiple religions. It's a role that Anne-Grethe treasures, as it allows her to make connections with people from all over. And her image of God is definitely no...

In Los Angeles for the premiere of True Detective: Night Country, season four of the popular series, Upernavik-born Greenlandic activist and actress AKA NIVI NA discusses her first tv role as the troubled character Julia Navarro. Having experienced prejudice while living in Denmark, Aka supports opening sustained dialogue about indigenous individuality and seeing increased Greenlandic representation in storytelling and in being par...