Sidse Babett Knudsen

The Waitress Who Didn't Want to Be a Star

Sidse Babett Knudsen arrived in Paris in 1987 with a suitcase and no desire to follow the path laid out for her in Denmark. She worked as a waitress and lived in cheap accommodations while learning her craft at the Théâtre de l’Ombre. That period shaped a personality that shuns comfort and always seeks the inner conflict of each role.

Paris was her real school.

When she returned to Copenhagen, Danish cinema was experiencing the Dogma 95 boom. But she chose to make her debut in 1997 with the improvisational comedy Let's Get Lost. She won the Bodil Award for Best Actress and broke the mold of Nordic acting in the late 1990s. Her style was fresh and far less rigid than that of her contemporaries.

In 1999, she starred in The One and Only. The film drew nearly one million moviegoers in Danish cinemas. It was the moment her face began to be recognized on every corner of Copenhagen. But Knudsen was uncomfortable with sudden fame and chose to space out her appearances in major productions so she could return to the theater stage.

The Office That Changed European Television

In 2010, she accepted the role of Birgitte Nyborg in the series Borgen. No one on the production team expected a political drama about the inner workings of Denmark's governing coalition to have an impact beyond Scandinavia. So the series' global impact caught the actress filming on low-budget sets.

And the gamble paid off.

The series was sold to more than 70 countries, and Knudsen became the face of female power without falling into the genre's clichés. During the first three seasons, aired between 2010 and 2013, the actress gave her character a vulnerable humanity. Because Nyborg was no heroine (she was a woman losing her family while winning elections).

In 2022, she returned to the role in Borgen: Power & Glory. In this new chapter, the storyline focused on the oil conflict in Greenland. The actress insisted that her character be tougher and less empathetic than in the previous decade. Her per-episode salary was on par with the biggest stars of British television.

Winning Over International Awards

Knudsen never lost her ties to France. In 2015, she shot The Judge alongside Fabrice Luchini. Her performance as a nurse serving on a citizens' jury earned her the César Award for Best Supporting Actress in 2016. She was the first Danish actress to win this honor in the history of the French awards.

Hollywood came knocking that same year. She appeared in the blockbuster Inferno alongside Tom Hanks and joined the cast of the HBO series Westworld. But the actress has always said she prefers European shoots for the depth of their dialogue. In 2014, she starred in The Duke of Burgundy, a cult film exploring dynamics of domination and submission.

Knudsen avoids social media and keeps her private life under strict protection.

In 2023, she worked under Jessica Hausner in the film Club Zero. The film competed for the Palme d'Or at the Cannes Film Festival and revealed a much colder side of the actress. Also in 2023, she starred in Ehrengard: The Art of Seduction, a production whose costume and set design was handled by Queen Margrethe II of Denmark.

The actress lives mainly in Copenhagen and continues to choose her projects with the principle of never repeating a previous pattern. In 2024, the production of her new projects was kept under strict confidentiality agreements at studios in Denmark.