For Thomas La Barbera Christensen, building a career as an actor has also meant learning how to live with rejection. Between training, auditions, and thousands of “no’s,” the Danish performer discovered that persistence is not about ignoring difficulty, but recognizing that every rejection can become part of the road toward the next “yes.” One of those moments arrived with The Wrong Girls, the action comedy in which he plays Axel, a Danish villain who crosses paths with characters played by Kristen Stewart and Alia Shawkat.
In the interview, Christensen discusses acting in Danish again after roughly two decades, explains how jazz and improvisation influence his work on screen, and recalls training in Zweihänder swordsmanship for Relic. He also reflects on vulnerability, discipline, and the projects he still hopes to create — including an international adventure set between Denmark and Greenland that blends geopolitics, archaeology, mythology, and environmental suspense.
In The Wrong Girls, you play Axel, the leader of a group of Danish villains described as icy, manicured, and terrifying. How did you build the character’s personality and find the balance between menace, action, and the film’s comedic tone?
I’m honored to be playing one of the first truly manicured and terrifying Danish villains in Hollywood history 🙂 Dylan Meyer’s script was incredibly tight, and it gave me so many quirky clues about who Axel was. From there, I had a lot of fun diving into some Danish films and characters for inspiration. I always built some form of a backstory for my character, including his relationships with his henchmen, Thomas and Thor, and his boss Mr. Kock. I use writing as a way to lure out a character’s life and as a way to get ideas about behavior and thought patterns.
The great thing about playing a villain in a comedy is that you don’t necessarily have to play the comedy for laughs. You play the character completely seriously. You commit to his point of view. You put the high stakes of the scene in your stomach and the words and circumstances take care of the humor. You can allow yourself to have bigger reactions (internally and externally) and push things a little further when it’s a comedy.
One of the things I particularly enjoyed was translating my lines into Danish and acting in Danish again. It had been about 20 years since I had really done that, so it was a wonderful part of the experience.
Axel is sent to retrieve a suitcase from the characters played by Kristen Stewart and Alia Shawkat. What was it like stepping into that dynamic and working on a production with such a diverse and acclaimed cast?
It was incredibly exciting knowing I was going to be on set with such amazing actors! Definitely butterflies in my belly … I do certain affirmations for auditions and on set to get in the right mind set. It helps me ground and be open to play. It was a ‘pinch me’ moment sitting in between scenes and chatting with Kristen, Alia, LaKeith and Tony. Look at me know mom!
I speak mostly Danish in the movie, while Kristen and Alia’s characters have no idea what we’re saying. They only know that we’re after them and the suitcase. There was a great comedic disconnect in that. I could be trying to intimidate Alia in Danish, and she would look at me as though I was apologizing to her. Those moments were super to play.
Beyond that, I loved simply observing my fellow actors and seeing how they approach their craft. Watching what they brought to the first take compared with the fifth take was fascinating. I took so many actors notes from them!
Everyone loved being on set, working on this movie (it was right after the devastating Los Angeles fires) so there was a special intense energy of wanting to get this done and celebrate the business we’re all in!
For Relic, you trained in Zweihänder swordsmanship to play Eoin. What does that kind of physical preparation add to your performance and to the way you understand action-driven characters?
When you train a specific skill for a role and then actually use it in the movie, it gives you a completely different level of confidence and that energy translate to your character and to your performance. You develop an understanding that you’ve done the work. You’ve gone through the awkward phase, you’ve made mistakes, you’ve gotten your bruises, and eventually the skill becomes part of you. That preparation creates a certain physical confidence. You don’t have to think about whether you know what you’re doing because, you do. Your body has been through those movements and choreography hundreds of times.
Jazz also holds an important place in your life, from witnessing more than 2,500 performances at Vibrato Grill Jazz to performing onstage yourself. How do music, rhythm, and improvisation influence your work as an actor?
It’s fascinating because I’ve seen more than 2,500 performances while working at Vibrato, and I’ve had the opportunity to watch performers closely: how they prepare, what routines they develop, and how much of themselves they allow into a performance.
I would say that roughly 80% of performers stay very close to their script or their established routine, while perhaps 20% are courageous enough to step outside of it and say, Let’s see what happens if I completely give myself to this moment and relinquish control. Open up to something bigger than me.
That energy is completely different. Not everyone can do it, and it’s something I constantly strive for in my own acting. When I hear “action,” I don’t always want to know exactly what I’m going to do. I want to leave enough room to surprise myself. That’s one of the reasons I act: to surprise myself and to allow the universe to send little gifts into a scene that I couldn’t have planned.
Your journey spans Hollywood films, television, theatre, period dramas, and now an action comedy. What have you learned about yourself by moving between such different genres, mediums, and characters?
I’ve learned that I have many different characters living inside me. My family thinks that’s a little strange, although they usually get a good laugh out of it.
Spending an hour alone on stage performing my one-man show was probably my biggest challenge as an actor so far. It taught me a lot about vulnerability, discipline, and the ability to hold an audience’s attention without having anyone else to hide behind.
I’ve also learned that being an actor means doing your time. You train, you audition, you hear “no” thousands of times, and you keep going. Even the occasional “yes” doesn’t necessarily lead anywhere.
And then, sometimes, you get a YES like I did with The Wrong Girls, and something beautiful comes out of it. That makes all the other no’s part of the journey rather than failures.
You are developing an action-drama screenplay set in Denmark and dream of making an Indiana Jones-style adventure across Europe. Which elements of your own story, Danish culture, and personal passions would you like to bring to that future project?
I would draw heavily from my travels throughout Europe, as well as Egypt and Jordan. I traveled extensively as a backpacker in my twenties, and I’ve always been fascinated by archaeology, ancient artifacts, and the layers of history hidden beneath the places we visit.
I’ve always dreamed of making an international adventure thriller. There is so much fascinating Danish history that could become part of that world, whether it’s the Vikings, Greenland, the Knights Templar, or stories from the Danish monarchy, which stretches back more than a thousand years.
At the moment I’ve been developing a story that blends contemporary geopolitics with the extraordinary landscapes, wildlife, and culture of Greenland. At its heart is a marine biologist who uncovers a series of mysterious wildlife deaths along Greenland’s coast. What begins as an environmental mystery quickly escalates into an international political thriller involving Greenland, Denmark, and the United States. Alongside him is a Greenlandic Inuit heroine, a descendant of a shamanic lineage, whose ancestral knowledge reveals that some mysteries cannot be explained by science alone. The story moves between Greenland and Denmark, weaving political tension, ancient mythology, and environmental suspense into a single narrative. I’m looking for collaborators to help develop this project.
I love the idea that, in our technologically advanced world, we can still uncover ancient truths and hidden secrets that people understood thousands of years ago. Technology has advanced enormously, but that doesn’t necessarily mean we’ve become wiser. There is something compelling about discovering that the past may still have things to teach us.
That combination of history, archaeology, adventure, and international locations is the kind of storytelling that really excites me. I’d love to create a film that takes the audience around the world while also making them question how much we truly understand about the world we inherited.
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