Film: Søren Malling (Men & Chicken): 'I'm a late bloomer'

In Anders Thomas Jensen's creepy, philosophical, and brutally funny comedy Men & Chicken five half-brothers with the brains of an egg are played by Denmark's finest actors. One of them is Søren Malling, star of A Hijacking, The Killing, and Borgen.

We know Søren Malling as Inspector Jan Meyer in the influential Danish crime series The Killing, as the mild-mannered TV news boss Torben Friis in the acclaimed political series Borgen, and as the CEO in the nail-bitingly tense film A Hijacking who negotiates cool-headedly with the Somali pirates who have hijacked one of his ships. Three very serious roles. That he can also be incredibly funny and nasty, he proves alongside Mads Mikkelsen in Men & Chicken. Exactly one week after the Brussels terror attacks, Malling appeared onstage at the Brussels International Fantastic Film Festival and electrified the crowd like a consummate rock star. The underlying message was clear: we're not going to let them intimidate us.

The US director Kevin Smith cancelled his visit to the BIFFF after the attacks. Weren't you afraid to come?
Søren Malling: Of course I was afraid. I rang the festival straight away to express my sympathy and to tell them that I was on standby. Why? Je suis Bruxelles. My wife was more scared than I was. "Right now, Brussels is maybe the safest city in the world," I told her. I couldn't see myself not coming. Living in fear – you can't keep on like that. I had to turn up and show that life goes on.

On the opening evening at the BIFFF, you behaved like a rock star.
Malling: Presentations just before a screening can often be dry and awkward. I thought about telling why I found it important to come to Brussels. I had prepared a little speech. But I thought it would be a better idea to give it everything like a rock star. The way I saw it, everyone knows the difficult situation; let's not forget to party. The crowd went wild.

We're due to see you again soon in Tobias Lindholm's war drama Krigen. You're in the form of your life. But to be honest, I had never noticed you before The Killing. My fault?
Malling: No, I'm a late bloomer. I was nearly forty when I broke through. After graduating, most actors launch their careers within the next five years. While my friends were becoming known, I was stuck in small theatre projects. I wanted to do film and television; I knocked around auditions, but I always missed out on the role. That was frustrating.

How come?
Malling: There was always someone better than me. That's life. A time came when I was sick of the theatre and chucked it in. The next day, I got the phone calls that got my career back on track. My first big part was in The Killing. Because I no longer had anything to lose, I was very relaxed during the audition. I think I had been far too ambitious in the past. I was looking forward to fame and glory – and that often doesn't work out.

Men & Chicken contains hilarious scenes with the idiotic brothers beating each other or playing badminton amid laboratory animals. Is there a message lurking behind the slapstick and the absurdism? Do you see a link with Jensen's previous black comedies?
Malling: It would be poor stuff if there was nothing else besides slapstick and witty dialogue. In the four films [including The Green Butchers and Adam's Apples – NR] that Jensen directed, there is always a discussion about God and Christianity. And it's always about families that are sometimes a bit strange and an outsider who disrupts the harmony. Men & Chicken is perhaps his darkest and most extreme film. The message is simple: a life is a life and you have to respect that. That seems obvious. But then he shows you totally fucked-up people with very ugly faces. Sons of a professor who carries out experiments. With no mothers! A psychiatrist would surely look for an explanation in Jensen's childhood. He had no father or mother, but he did have lots of brothers and sisters. He brought himself up.

You acted in The Killing and Borgen, TV series that have conquered the world. How do you explain the success of the Danish TV series?
Malling: That's a long story. I'll limit myself to two things. Dogma 95 [a film movement, started by Lars von Trier and Thomas Vinterberg, that caused a big stir twenty years ago – NR] opened everyone's eyes. At film, television, and acting schools, too, people began to realise: we can do something, if we don't approach it the old-fashioned way. Down with the director as absolute ruler nobody dares to cross. A good film is something you work on together. Producers, actors, set constructors, screenwriters: everyone has to be willing to get stuck in. A second important factor is that an enlightened mind was able to persuade the Danish public broadcasting service to invest in the long term. To pay screenwriters to spend half a year brooding on ideas and then use only the best ones. Everybody was welcome in the writers' room. That was a minor revolution: a fuck-you directed at the conservative way of working. Nobody knew The Killing would be such a success. We didn't do it for the success, but because we knew we could make something good.

Are Danish actors surfing on that success? People like Mads Mikkelsen, Ulrich Thomsen, Sidse Babett Knudsen, Pilou Asbæk, and Nikolaj Lie Kaas are popping up everywhere.
Malling: Of course we are taking advantage of that success. Twenty years ago, as a Danish actor, at best you could go to Sweden or Germany. These days, I have to provide an audio-tape for my agent in America twice a week. Next year, I'm starting on a big HBO series and maybe on the new James Bond too. There are lots of openings for Scandinavian actors. It's not just about talent. Thanks to the success of the TV series, we're getting a lot of attention. In ten years from now, it could all be over and maybe it will be the Belgians' turn.

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DK, 2015, dir.: Anders Thomas Jensen, act.: Mads Mikkelsen, Nikolaj Lie Kaas, Søren Malling, 104 min.