Broken nose started actor's journey to 'New Amsterdam'

BEVERLY HILLS, Calif. -- When he was a little boy, Nikolaj Coster-Waldau got into a fight with another boy in his native Denmark. The boy broke his nose. And while Coster-Waldau can't remember what the altercation was about, he remembers how it hurt. "I cried a lot," he says in the lobby of a bustling hotel here.

That broken nose is one of the things that make Coster-Waldau's face unique. And it takes someone who's slightly south of perfect to play John Amsterdam in Fox's series, "New Amsterdam."

John Amsterdam is a man snared between the centuries, an immortal doomed to pace the Earth until his true love frees him from the everlasting wheel of life. At the same time he serves as a New York homicide detective shape-shifting from the proud to the profane.

"It's difficult to get the balance right in the character," admits Coster-Waldau, who co-starred in "Black Hawk Down" and "Wimbledon."

"He's a haunted man. He's lived so long he has a streak of cynicism, at the same time he's very romantic and you have to find a balance. I'm struggling to find that balance. I don't feel pressure about the show, I just feel blessed to have the opportunity. I really like the scripts, the whole team, the story and the character."

Raised mostly by his mother, Coster-Waldau says that acting was something he always wanted to do, but never disclosed his desire to anyone.

"I remember I called my mother when I was accepted at the national theater school in Denmark and she was, 'My God!' That was such a shock for her because she didn't know I'd applied. I grew up in the country, it was something that wasn't really ... I was the only actor around, the only one who wanted to be that."

His mother championed his odd choice. "My mother was very supportive; she's always been very supportive. I moved away from home when I was 17 so I'd already moved out. I worked in a store for the first eight months and then started drama school which is a 24-hour thing. In Denmark you have very good grants so you don't have to work. I got a grant; the whole acting thing is very different back home," says the 37-year-old, who's dressed in a white shirt with green stripes and black slacks.

"Here in Los Angeles you meet so many actors who have never worked or been trained. But in Denmark you have to go through the national theater schools to really become an actor. They're four years."

Once you graduate, you're on your own, says Coster-Waldau. "I was very lucky. My first job was the lead in a film back home which became very successful, and so in that way I was very blessed. I was working right out of school."

But things didn't stay perfect. "I had one year -- '99 -- which was a very bad year. I'd just done two movies back home but I wanted to live in London to see if I could go that route. It's expensive and I'd done one little English film, and I was kind of just struggling. There's a lot of competition in England as there is here, and I spent a lot of time trying to perfect my English and living off the money I'd earned the year before.

"My sister lives in England and has been there for years, so I made this rule with her that we weren't allowed to talk to each other in Danish. So I only spoke English with her and would watch television and just basically repeat everything."

After his stint in England he returned to Copenhagen, where he performed in two plays. When he was notified they were casting "Black Hawk Down" he put himself on tape and dispatched it to the States. It was from that tape that he was cast, and things began to change for the better.

The father of two daughters, 3 and 6, Coster-Waldau is married to a former Miss Greenland, Nukaka Motzfeldt. He says his family is waiting in Greenland to see how the series goes.

"I've always wanted to work over here and I think it is very hard ... it's very hard to be away from them. I don't really think about those things usually. I was offered early on to be in a theater for a whole season, and I've never wanted to do that. I've always wanted to freelance. If you're on a television show for four years it must be difficult to make the transition to the unknown, but for me I've always been free lance."

In a twist of fate, capturing the role of John Amsterdam was his easiest audition yet. "I was very lucky because there was another show that wanted me at the same time and out here, that's the best thing. If someone ELSE wants it, they've got to have it," he laughs.

Additional Information:

'New Amsterdam'

9 p.m. Mondays, Fox