Ulrich Thomsen can make the effort of speaking hold our attention through a roomful of noise. We value the patient, hesitant actor of The Celebration more than his reputation for menace might suggest.
Fi1m perspective
In The Celebration (1998), Ulrich Thomsen makes us notice the effort Christian needs to speak. He hesitates without telling us exactly what to feel about the hesitation, and holds our attention through the family's chaos. We were moved by how difficult he made speaking seem; the pauses kept us conscious of Christian's suffering. Thomas Vinterberg gives the performance room, even when the restless camerawork competes with it.
His film debut came in Nightwatch (1994), but The Celebration was the breakthrough that led to international work, including Davidov in The World Is Not Enough (1999). His career then moved between Danish films, international supporting parts and television. He played Michael in Susanne Bier's Brothers (2004) and Kai Proctor, the principal antagonist across four seasons, in Banshee (2013–2016). Bier, like Vinterberg, has worked with him repeatedly.
The attraction of casting him as an antagonist is understandable, but we would be wary of treating menace as the whole job. In The Celebration, Henning Moritzen's father supplies a formidable presence and Thomas Bo Larsen's Michael the more volatile energy. Thomsen helps make their efforts to contain themselves as absorbing as any loss of control. He does not hurry to make Christian's feelings readable, which gives us time to look beyond his behaviour. We would like more parts to ask him for that much uncertainty, rather than settle for a forbidding presence.
Lanterns (2026), in which he plays Sinestro, belongs to the international television side of that career. We found the programme patient and well acted, but too willing to cut away from Kyle Chandler and Aaron Pierre's crime drama for a plot that would not settle. We will leave Sinestro's contribution undescribed rather than give away what the programme has in store. For a first encounter with Thomsen, choose The Celebration and allow for an uncomfortable evening.
Biography
Ulrich Thomsen is a Danish actor. He graduated from the Danish National School of Theatre and Contemporary Dance in 1993 and began his career in Copenhagen theatres before making his film debut in Nightwatch (1994).
His breakthrough came with the role of Christian in Thomas Vinterberg's The Celebration (1998). He gained international recognition as Davidov in the James Bond film The World Is Not Enough (1999) and later appeared in Kingdom of Heaven (2005), The International (2009) and The Thing (2011). On television he played Kai Proctor in Banshee (2013–2016) and Alexander Kirk in The Blacklist.
Since 2026 he has portrayed Sinestro in the DC series Lanterns.
