Iben Hjejle
Iben Hjejle is a Danish actress who had two careers running in parallel from about 2000 onward. The international one began with Laura in Stephen Frears' High Fidelity, the girlfriend whose departure sets the whole film going, a part that required her to be reasonable and specific while the lead narrated his way around her. The domestic one, in Denmark, is the larger of the two.
At home she is a comedy fixture. She played Liva in the sitcom Far from Las Vegas, and then Iben in Klovn, where she plays the girlfriend of Casper Christensen, her former partner in life as well as on screen, under her own first name. That is an unusual thing to sustain across a series built on humiliation comedy, and she does it by refusing to become the punchline: her register is dry, adult and slightly tired, which is exactly what that show needs pushing back at it.
The dramatic work runs alongside. Therese in the crime comedy Flickering Lights, the title role in the crime series Dicte, Ellen Andersen in The Rain, Bella in Defiance and Marie Laure in the period piece Chéri, plus Anna Pihl and a run of Danish television. It is a career built almost entirely at home, with one very famous English-language detour that never turned into a Hollywood career, which by the look of the credits was not the aim.
Movies (5)
TV (6)
Where to start with Iben Hjejle
High Fidelity is where most people meet her and it remains the best showcase, because the film gives her the thankless job of being the sensible person in a story told by someone who is not, and she makes Laura the only character with an inner life.
If you want the Danish work, and you should, Klovn is the essential one: a comedy of cringe that only functions because she plays her half of it completely straight. Dicte is the mainstream lead role, a crime series carried on her, and The Rain is the easiest entry for anyone who found her through streaming. Flickering Lights is the sharpest of the films, and Defiance and Chéri show what other industries did with her when they got the chance.