‘This show is set 1,000 years ago, and nothing seems to have changed’

Six years after making his name in ‘Game of Thrones’, Nikolaj Coster-Waldau is returning to battle in the BBC epic ‘King & Conqueror’. He has plenty to say to Ellie Harrison

- By Ellie Harrison

Jet lag can do strange things to a person. Some of us fall asleep and end up face down in our dinners. Others fall into a kind of manic existentialism. And this is the state in which I find Nikolaj Coster-Waldau. We are ostensibly meeting to talk about his role as William of Normandy in the BBC's epic historical drama King & Conqueror, and of course Game of Thrones, the show that propelled him to international heartthrob status. But instead, Coster-Waldau seems to be in the mood for heftier topics. Social media, AI, robots, wars, weapons, intimacy coordinators, the inevitability of ageing - all are on the table. “OK, this is not about William the Conqueror,” he admits at one point. “Fuck. Give me a question. Get me back on track!”

The 55-year-old Danish actor is speaking from a hotel room in New Jersey, his slate-grey shirt unbuttoned at the top and his arm slung over the sofa. His accent is a heady mix of Danish and American, with the odd lengthy British vowel thrown in. The hair is sandy; the jaw could cut steel. The man may be knackered, but he looks sharp as ever.

Coster-Waldau has landed in the US, for a project he can't disclose, after several weeks in India and a flyby visit to London - hence the jet lag. And it's no wonder he's feeling existential: in India, he was filming the forthcoming second season of his Bloomberg TV documentary An Optimist's Guide to the Planet, in which he travels the world to meet people who are striving for a more sustainable future. In London, he was at the premiere of King & Conqueror, a lavish, fictionalised retelling of the lead-up to the battle of 1066, a war that changed the very fabric of England and that has made him reflect on today's conflicts and the behaviour of our world leaders. It's all pretty heavy stuff.

Fans of