Personal Life
Nikolaj Coster-Waldau lives with his wife, Nukaka, a
Greenlandic actress and singer, their two daughters - actresses Saffina and
Philippa - and their two dogs in an apartment near Copenhagen. Nikolaj and
Nukaka married in 1997. His father-in-law, Josef Motzfeldt, a member of the
Parliament in Greenland, is a former leader of the Inuit Community Party. His
favorite team is Leeds United, through which he gets his membership into the
Leeds United Supporters' Trust.
Nikolaj William Coster-Waldau is a Danish actor. His
breakthrough role in Denmark was through the film Nightwatch in 1994. He played
Jaime Lannister in the HBO fantasy drama series Game of Thrones for which he is
nominated twice in the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Supporting Actor in
a Drama Series.
Coster-Waldau's filmography features a range of Danish
films, Swedish movies, and eventually American movies. Headhunters (2011) and A
Thousand Times Goodnight (2013) are just two examples. His career in films in
the U.S. began when he played a part in the war film Black Hawk Down (2001). In
that film, he featured as the Medal of Honor recipient MSG Gary Gordon. He then
played a detective in the almost fully developed Fox television series New
Amsterdam (2008) and was in the Fox television film Virtuality, originally
intended, but not made into a series. Currently, as of 2021 Coster-Waldau is a
UNDP Goodwill Ambassador, drawing public attention to issues such as gender
equality and climate change.
Early life and education
Nikolaj William Coster-Waldau was born to Hanne Søborg
Coster, a librarian, and Jørgen Oscar Fritzer Waldau (died in 1998) at
Rudkøbing in Denmark. He has talked about his father's alcohol problems in
interviews and his parents' eventual divorce. He has two older sisters, and was
raised mainly by his mother. He grew up in Tybjerg, a smaller village between
Ringsted and Næstved, in southern Zealand.
He studied at the Danish National School of Performing Arts
(Danish: Statens Teaterskole) in Copenhagen from 1989 to 1993.
Philanthropy
Coster-Waldau has been supporting the Danish Red Cross since 2003. In 2015, he announced a "Game of Thrones" campaign contest to endorse the RED foundation to raise awareness for and fight AIDS. He's also served as a UNDP Goodwill Ambassador since 2016, which aims to raise awareness and support the United Nations' Sustainable Development Goals to end poverty, fight inequality, and stop climate change. In his mission statement as UNDP Goodwill Ambassador, he stated, "My main mission as UNDP Goodwill Ambassador will be to raise awareness and support for the Global Goals for a better future for all, which cannot be achieved without empowering women and protecting our planet.".
In 2017, he partnered with Google to use Street View to
document the impact of global warming in Greenland with the goal of increasing
awareness and highlighting climate change. On International Women's Day in
2017, Coster-Waldau took part in a female empowerment program in Kenya. In
2018, he and several other Danish artists signed a manifesto demanding zero
tolerance for sexual harassment, sexual assault, and sexism in the Danish film
and arts industry. In 2019, he traveled to Rwanda to report about the country's
progress and to the Peruvian Amazon to tour the Amazon rainforest wildfires and
offer insights into effects from climate change.
| Field | Value (as of 19-08-2025) |
|---|---|
| Screen Name | Nikolaj Coster-Waldau |
| Real Name | Nikolaj William Coster-Waldau |
| Date of Birth | July 27, 1970 |
| Age | 55 years |
| Compare | Gwendoline Christie |
| Birth Place | Rudkøbing, Denmark |
| Residence | Copenhagen, Denmark |
| Country | Denmark |
| Profession | Actor |
| Nationality | Danish |
| Social Media |
Instagram: Instagram (~3M followers) Facebook Page: Facebook Page (followers not specified) Twitter (X): Twitter (X) (followers not specified) |
| Siblings | Not publicly documented |
| Spouse | Nukâka Coster-Waldau (married 1997) |
| Relationship | 1 |
| Children | 2 |
| Net Worth | $16 Million USD |
| Rank | 5347 |