David Dencik

Karl David Sebastian Dencik is a Swedish-Danish actor.

In 1939 he obtained asylum in Sweden to escape the Nazi persecution of Jews in Slovakia.

In Sweden he met David Dencik's paternal grandmother, a Swede.

They had a son, Lars Dencik, David's father, a social psychologist.

Dencik's mother, Kerstin Allrot, is a Swedish former film historian and producer.

His wife is a lawyer who works in Copenhagen.

Dencik lives in Denmark but as his work takes him to Sweden he also has an apartment in Stockholm.

In 1999 he moved back to Stockholm after being accepted at the Swedish National Academy of Mime and Acting, where he graduated in 2003.

His Slovak last name, Denčík, comes from his paternal grandfather, a Czechoslovak from Liptovský Mikuláš in present-day Slovakia.

After having had minor roles in different films, David Dencik became an established actor in Sweden for his role as the killer John Ausonius in the three-part TV mini-series Lasermannen in 2005.

Dencik is a twice Robert Award winner, for Best Actor in a Leading Role for A Soap (2006) and Robert Award for Best Actor in a Supporting Television Role for The Chestnut Man (2021).

In 2006 he starred in the comedy Everything About My Bush (known as Allt om min buske in Swedish).

In 2007 he appeared in the Danish feature film Daisy Diamond, directed by Simon Staho.

He portrayed Fred Åkerström in the biographical film Cornelis, starring Hank Von Helvete as Cornelis Vreeswijk.

He has acted in both Swedish and Danish films, and has also had major roles in English-language films and series including Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy (2011), The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo (2011), Top of the Lake (2017), McMafia (2018), Chernobyl (2019), and the James Bond film No Time to Die (2021).

In 2011 he appeared in the Hollywood adaptation of The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo and played Toby Esterhase in the film Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy.

He also starred in the gay-themed Brotherhood and the Dimension Films thriller Regression.

In 2017 he played brothel owner Alexander "Puss" Braun in Jane Campion's acclaimed Top of the Lake.

McMafia (2018) saw Dencik play Russian boss Uncle Boris Godman, inspired by the book McMafia: A Journey Through the Global Criminal Underworld (2008) by journalist Misha Glenny.

Dencik then portrayed a rogue scientist, Valdo Obruchev, in the James Bond film No Time to Die (2021).

He won a Guldbagge Award for Best Supporting Actor for The Perfect Patient (2019).

He is also a seven-time Bodil Award nominee.

Dencik was born in Stockholm, Sweden.

The year he was born the family moved to Denmark, where he spent his childhood.

As a teenager he studied in Brazil, where he discovered capoeira, the Brazilian martial art that combines elements of dance and music.

The dance aspect of Capoeira led him to take an interest in theatre.