FOUR OTHER SCANDI NOIR BREAKOUT STARS

SIDSE BABETT KNUDSEN

Best known in the UK as Danish Prime Minister Birgitte Nyborg in influential political drama Borgen, Knudsen, above, has since become a favourite of cult British film director Peter Strickland – she features in both The Duke Of Burgundy and In Fabric – and has made the inevitable Transatlantic journey too. In 2016 she played opposite Tom Hanks in Inferno, Ron Howard’s adaptation of the Dan Brown thriller, and in the same year appeared as Theresa Cullen in the first series of HBO’s Westworld. British television hasn’t been slow to snap her up, either. Late last year she starred alongside Sarah Lancashire in Channel 4 drama The Accident and she can next be seen in Limbo, the second feature from Edinburgh-born director Ben Sharrock.

ÓLAFUR DARRI ÓLAFSSON

The Icelandic actor came to the attention of British audiences playing the lumbering, bearded, rural detective Andri Olafsson in two series of Trapped. Since then he has appeared in a slew of US and British films – from Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes Of Grindelwald to Murder Mystery, in which he plays opposite Adam Sandler and Jennifer Aniston – and found himself a neat side-line in voiceover parts. He can also be seen starring in another Netflix show, comedy series Lady Dynamite, and he has made two notable appearances on British terrestrial television – in BBC anthology series The Missing (written and created by Jack and Harry Williams, also the producers of Fleabag) and ITV’s The Widow, playing opposite Kate Beckinsale and Charles

Dance.

KIM BODNIA

The Copenhagen-born actor played Sofia Helin’s long-suffering Danish sidekick Martin Rohde in two series of The Bridge, which was remade as The Tunnel with Game Of Thrones star Stephen Dillane taking Bodnia’s role. Since then he has become a firm favourite on British television thanks to his winning performance as Konstantin Vasiliev, the likeable foil to Jodie Cromer’s psychotic Villanelle in multi award-winning spy drama Killing Eve. Series three of the BBC show begins on April 12.

SOFIE GRÅBØL

You could say Danish actress Sofie Gråbøl, right, is the one who started it all. As Sarah Lund in The Killing, it was her (and her jumpers) which popularised so-called Scandi Noir. Gråbøl won a BAFTA for that performance and has since found her way into a range of British and American productions. Happy Valley writer Sally Wainwright, a fan of The Killing, gave Gråbøl a guest role in BBC costume romp Gentleman Jack and the producers of the US version of The Killing did the same, casting her as District Attorney Christina Nielsen. In 2016 she even appeared on stage in the Edinburgh International Festival in Rona Munro’s blockbuster series of plays about Scottish Kings James I, II and III, the so-called James Plays. But her biggest post-Killing role has come in big budget Sky drama Fortitude, playing opposite Michael Gambon, Stanley Tucci and Dennis Quaid.