If you’ve loved a Danish film in the past 20 years, there’s a good chance it was written by Anders Thomas Jensen. The wildly prolific Danish screenwriter has been a co-author with Susanne Bier — on the Oscar-winning In a Better World (2010), as well as Brothers (2004) and After the Wedding (2006), both of which got U.S. remakes) — Nicolaj Arcel (The Promised Land from 2023) and Kristian Levring (2000’s The King is Alive), while still regularly churning out darkly comic gems as a writer-director.
He started with 2000’s Flickering Lights, where four inept crooks hole up in the country and accidentally open a restaurant. The Green Butchers (2003) went darker, with Mads Mikkelsen and Nikolaj Lie Kaas discovering human flesh is a best-seller — Hannibal with slapstick. Adam’s Apples (2005) upped the dysfunction, pitting a neo-Nazi, a priest and assorted misfits against stray bullets and falling fruit in a warped take on the Book of Job. A decade later came Men & Chicken (2015), where five maladjusted brothers learn their quirks may stem from dad’s Frankenstein-style experiments. Most recently, Riders of Justice (2020) cast Mikkelsen as a grieving soldier turned vigilante in a revenge thriller that mixes John Wick-esque carnage with math jokes.
The Last Viking, premiering out of competition in Venice and being sold by TrustNordisk, may be Jensen’s wildest yet. Kaas plays Anker, a bank robber whose loot is entrusted to his traumatized younger brother Manfred (Mikkelsen). But by the time Kaas is released from prison, Manfred — a former viking obsessive — has been diagnosed with dissociative identity disorder. He now believes he’s John Lennon. Kaas sees no alternative: He has to find a collection of similarly afflicted patients — ones that think they’re George, Ringo and Paul — and bring the Fab Four back together, all in the hopes of jogging his brother’s memory and finding the cash before their past catches up with them. An action comedy combined with a sharp but still sweet satire on identity politics, The Last Viking sees Jensen at the top of his game.
Jensen spoke to The Hollywood Reporter about finding the funny in trauma, giving Mikkelsen his most challenging role yet and why, in the never-ending Beatles vs. ABBA debate, he’s team Bjorn.
This is a crazy idea for a film. What was the spark that initiated it?
You always get this question, and I like the idea of being in the shower, and an idea just pops up. It’s not like that for me. Ideas come when I work with them. For the last 15 years, every conversation with my kids and everywhere in the media has been about identity. The whole Western civilization has, instead of looking out towards others, turned the camera on themselves, because they suddenly could, because of social media and whatever.
So I wanted to do something about identity. And I had this idea about a boy who always wanted to be a Viking and wasn’t allowed to do it. I sat down with [Danish producer] Peter Aalbaek Jensen and was telling him about this old idea I had about a psychiatrist putting together the Beatles with people suffering from identity disorders. He told me to work that into it. It was a lot of different stuff put all together.
You have a lot of empathy for your characters, but you also seem to be mocking some of the more extreme elements of identity culture, about everyone having the right to their own version of reality.
I don’t try to mock. And this is an elevated story, it’s sort of absurd. I think it’s fantastic that we live in a part of the world at a time where everybody can seek out who they are and become who they really are. But when the surroundings have to adapt to the reality of one individual, things become absurd. That’s basically where a lot of the comedy in the movie comes from.
That seems to be personified in Mads Mikkelsen’s character, who is convinced he’s John Lennon. It’s an “identity” for Mikkelsen unlike anything we’ve seen him do before.
I wouldn’t have dared to do this if it hadn’t been with Mads. It’s not easy what he’s doing. The whole struggle was to get real emotions into a character that is this far out and still make it relatable. I think he pulls it off. Mads approached this role with caution. I know he was challenged by it. But he comes across as real. You believe that this person exists. He lands.
There’s another conflict in the story, between Beatles and ABBA fans…
My whole childhood, all the intellectuals liked the Beatles. Like all of Scandinavia, I grew up with ABBA. But it was like: ABBA might be fun, but it’s not art. The Beatles, they’re the real thing. ABBA was always in the shadow of the Beatles, intellectually.
But any dance floor will tell you otherwise. The Beatles is fantastic music and young people today of course, still know the Beatles. But ABBA is part of mainstream culture in a way that nobody could have foreseen.
Do you see this film as a spiritual sibling to Riders of Justice? I see a lot of thematic connections…
They are very different in their structure. With Riders of Justice, I think you could teach a class with that structure. The midpoint is exactly halfway through. I don’t think this movie has a midpoint. It’s more experimental. But we are dealing with people who are on the edge of sanity in both films.
I think in Riders of Justice there’s actually one normal person, the daughter. But in this movie, there’s nobody who isn’t lying to themselves about who they are. There’s nobody who’s straight or normal in this movie. So that’s a little development there. That was my journey. It took my five years to get away from anything normal.
You bookend the story with a “children’s book” about The Last Viking, in which the push for inclusion involves chopping off hands and legs to make everyone equal. It seems to undermine the more inclusive message about identity in the rest of the film. Why was it important to include it?
Well, first of all, the book sets the tone that this movie is a fable, a fairy tale. Because the first 20 minutes of the movie look very realistic, almost like a Danish 90s crime movie, like Pusher of something. So you need to tell people they are watching a fable so you don’t get a shock when you hit the second act.
On the themes, I tried with this movie to represent everything I’ve heard and seen over the last 15 years about identity. The tone of the movie celebrates the idea that we should all be whatever we are, and there should be room for everybody. I had all the characters from my reality represented, except for the older white male, which is why I put in Werner [played by Soren Malling], who writes the children’s book. So that’s his voice telling us: “Hey, there’s a limit to this identity thing. There’s a reality out there too.” I’m not saying that’s my opinion. It’s Werner’s vision.
I also just thought it was funny to put such violence and absurdity into a children’s book.
I imagine Werner’s book won’t be a best-seller.
We’re actually going to publish it as a real kids’ book. For older kids. So we’ll see.
You’ve had a lot of your work adapted. How involved are you in the remakes?
I try not to get too involved. Normally, I’ll read the script. With Brothers, I spoke many times with the director, Jim Sheridan, and I really liked the American version. I think it turned out quite good. But normally, I just pass it on and just wait and see what they do with it.
I learned this very early as a screenwriter, and I tell younger screenwriters this: If you’re too emotional about what you do and how it turns out, you shouldn’t be a screenwriter. Because a script is not a finished piece of art. It is a working tool that you pass on. Others might elevate it, or they may wreck it. If you get depressed for two years every time you go to a screening and see one of your scripts ruined, you won’t get any work done.
My philosophy is: Make it as good as you can, make sure you’re on the same page with the director and producer, and then lean back and enjoy what you can enjoy and forget the rest.
You do your own stuff, but you also co-write with other directors — Susanne Bier, Nikolaj Arcel. Do you adjust your voice to match their sensibilities?
I do. You have to be a sort of chameleon. You try and see what other directors do well. Nikolaj Arcel, for example, is really good at structure, so I won’t put my energy there. For others, it’ll be character. You try and focus your energy on the parts where it needs help.
And you need to be aware of what movie you’re doing. When I’m writing for Susanne Bier, doing a very dramatic scene, I have to slap myself on the fingers when I’m writing, because I tend to slip in jokes in what’s supposed to be a melodrama.
What’s up next, then, another directorial effort?
I’m writing a few screenplays now. I’m doing one with Arcel and I’m working with another director, but I don’t know if it’s going to land, so I won’t put names on it yet. It’s really good that I can both direct and write. Writing is very internal, a kind of lonely process. After a while you really want to go out and direct. Right now, after finishing this film, it’s the exact opposite. Right now, I’m happy not to have 100 people asking me questions every day. I’m looking forward to being alone to write.
