Anders Danielsen Lie plays men who are coming apart quietly and would rather not discuss it. His best work is with Joachim Trier; elsewhere, in both films we have reviewed, directors give him a scene or two and move on.
Fi1m perspective
Watch what Anders Danielsen Lie does when a scene is not about him. He listens, gives very little, and the little is exact: a man who has decided nobody present needs to know what he is thinking. He has spent most of his career playing people in the middle of a private crisis, thoughtful, sad and sometimes worse than sad, and he plays them without the signals most actors send to warn you a breakdown is coming. It is the least showy way to be noticed, and he has been noticed for it.
The career divides neatly. A child part in Herman (1990), then sixteen years away studying medicine in Oslo, then Joachim Trier cast him as Phillip in Reprise (2006) and kept casting him: as the lead in the second of the Oslo films (2011), playing a man also called Anders; as Aksel in The Worst Person in the World (2021); as Jakob in Sentimental Value (2025). Four films across nearly twenty years, and his reputation rests on them, above all on that 2011 lead, which is the one people still point to. He has never trained as an actor and he still practises as a GP between films. Of the surgery he has said, "It's a good place to be if you want to study human drama," and whether or not that is the explanation, it fits. He plays men the way a good doctor looks at a patient: closely, patiently, and without deciding in advance what is wrong.
Abroad he has been used more sparingly, and not always well. Olivier Assayas gave him Erwin in Personal Shopper (2016), where he and Sigrid Bouaziz get one good scene at a kitchen table and are then forgotten. Paul Greengrass cast him as the perpetrator in 22 July (2018); Mia Hansen-Løve gave him two parts in Bergman Island (2021). Even at home, in Sentimental Value, Trier hands Jakob only a handful of scenes. We came out of that film wishing he had more of them. He and Reinsve were the couple in The Worst Person in the World, and when they share the frame here you remember it, which the new film does little with.
The risk is obvious and he knows it. He has said he keeps ending up as the depressed, melancholy one and would like to do different things, and the parts that made his name are exactly that. A performer this careful can look, from a distance, like a performer doing one thing. The two films of his we have reviewed do not settle the question, because neither gives him room to. Somebody should. On the evidence so far he is at his best when a whole picture is built around a man who will not explain himself, and wasted when handed a table, a scene and a director who has moved on.
Biography
Anders Danielsen Lie is a Norwegian actor, musician and physician. He made his film debut at the age of 11 in the title role of Herman (1990). He trained in medicine at the University of Oslo, qualifying in 2007, and has continued to practise as a doctor alongside his acting career.
Danielsen Lie is best known for his collaborations with director Joachim Trier. He played leading roles in Reprise (2006), Oslo, August 31st (2011) and The Worst Person in the World (2021), the last of which formed part of Trier's Oslo trilogy. Oslo, August 31st was selected for Un Certain Regard at the 2011 Cannes Film Festival. Other credits include Personal Shopper (2016), 22 July (2018) and Sentimental Value (2025), in which he plays Jakob. He is the son of actress Tone Danielsen.
