He has been a tough guy and villain in Shorta, a hard-nosed farmer in Godland, an ex-soldier good guy in Oxen, and a father dealing with dark issues in When The Dust Settles. And we are only touching the surface of Danish star Jacob Lohmann’s work. Next up, the actor makes a shift to romantic comedy in Chaos – a snappy new Viaplay series out this week.

The last time Jacob and I spoke was during the height of the pandemic lockdown. We chatted over a phone call, both stuck in our own homes. As the conversation started, Jacob noticed a problem: the chair he was sitting on had broken…with him in it!

This time, speaking over zoom again from his home in Denmark, things have gotten off to a chaotic start; Denmark are testing out their warning signals on everyone’s mobiles, my sound quality had gone awry and Jacob’s dogs were barking at a delivery man – maybe it was planned as the pair of us settled down to discuss the actor’s new series Chaos.

It had been four years since that first call, and a lot has happened in between then, not just in the world but with Jacob’s incredible career.

Jacob Lohmann discusses Chaos

Nordic Watchlist: Chaos — I’m a big fan, really enjoying it. I love the chemistry between you and Katrine. You’ve worked together before on Fathers and Mothers right?

Jacob Lohmann: Yeah! Did you see that?

Nordic Watchlist: Yeah, I was lucky enough to see it. It never came out in the UK, but I saw it in Denmark.

Jacob: Yeah, they picked me from the beginning. Lars, the director, is a very good friend of mine, and Katrine was already on board — she was the lead, of course. Then they did some casting and they both agreed on me. That made me feel welcome from the start. And she’s just so easy to work with. She’s such a team player — I can’t say enough good things about her.

So it was easy to fall into that very special place where two people fall in love. As long as you throw some balls in the air and she catches them — and I like to think I catch hers — then it becomes like a game. And falling in love is a game, with all the pretending: “Do we want to do this? But I’m married…”, “I don’t want to do this because I’m doing something else right now,” and all of that.

So it was just a pleasure. That was the easiest part of it. I feel like that’s what comes across on screen — it was easy because I could always rely on her. There were never any difficulties with chemistry.

Nordic Watchlist: What drew you to the role in the first place? You’ve played such a variety of roles recently. We have had The Promised Land, Godland, Oxen… This one is very different. I think the last light-hearted thing we had here was Ehrengard: The Art of Seduction. So what was it that made you say yes to Chaos?

Jacob: Well, exactly that. It was something I hadn’t done before. I hope there are more things I haven’t done yet, but playing the romantic lead — the lover — I hadn’t done much of that. I’ve played a lot of villains, shady characters, law enforcement… so I had all that in the bag.

When this came along, I thought, “This is uncharted territory for me.” And that was great.

So yeah, the genre — I find this to be the most difficult one of all. Because it has to be fun and light, but also believable. You have to believe in the characters. It’s a tough balance: not too ridiculous, but not too serious either — or people get bored.

Nordic Watchlist: That makes sense.

Jacob: In drama, you sort of know where you’re going — you turn the temperature up or down. But here, anything can happen. The biggest, angriest freak-out can actually be funny.

So I’d go to work every day not knowing where the scenes would go — and I don’t usually feel that way. It was a big learning experience, which I really appreciated.

What About the Cooking?

Nordic Watchlist: Was it fun being part of that TV studio world and playing a professional chef?

Jacob: Yeah. And I can’t cook for shit. Like, I can boil an egg and make breakfast for my kids, but that’s it.

There were a lot of words thrown around on set — “This is a bisque,” “You sauté this” — and I was like, “What the hell are you talking about?” There was a real chef there, and he looked at me like I was an idiot. So I said, “Please just explain it to me.”

Eventually, I got the hang of it. I’m an actor after all, so he was kind of impressed when I finally managed to fake it convincingly. I was proud of that — like, yeah, I know my job!

Nordic Watchlist: So between cooking and physical combat — I remember you saying how tough Shorta was — which was harder?

Jacob: Oh, definitely the cooking!

Was there any real Chaos in Chaos?

Nordic Watchlist: Were there any true moments of chaos behind the scenes? Any fun stories that happened? Even your entrance — appearing out of the sea in your wetsuit!

Jacob: That was my Sean Connery moment! I mean, all that stuff with the sea was just fun.

In Denmark, we’ve had some accidents over the last 10 years that have made security around stunts like that really tight. So there were boats everywhere. It wasn’t exactly fun — but definitely chaotic. Sometimes the security starts screwing it up because not everybody is informed about when we’re in action and when we’re not. So if somebody sees us acting and they don’t realise it’s a scene, they freak out.

Nordic Watchlist: Wow.

Jacob: One day it would be perfectly still and calm, and then we came back the next day, and it was blowing a pelican! And we had to do all that in the water. Just a crazy, crazy day. I was so beat up after that. I’ve been on serious drama productions where we had twice the fun! Here, it was just threading the needle the whole time.

Nordic Watchlist: Threading the needle?

Jacob: Yeah, like: what’s the temperature in this scene? How do we make it fit with the rest of the genre? You have to find that balance — where we believe what’s going on, we’re moved by it, but it doesn’t have “pain.” The genre can’t have pain for some reason. It can have problems and obstacles, but it has to dance. It has to be like boom, boom, boom. The scenes are so short, and yet we need key things to happen for the plot in each one — and maybe we have four lines to do it. It has to fit perfectly. So yeah — very difficult.

Off the grid in Denmark

Nordic Watchlist: Your character lives off-grid. If you had the opportunity to live off the grid anywhere in Denmark, where would your chosen spot be?

Jacob: Good question! That wasn’t a bad spot my character found in the series.

Nordic Watchlist: It was a pretty beautiful spot. I was trying to figure out — where was it filmed?

Jacob: North Zealand which is north of Copenhagen and around 20 minutes north, you’ll discover this whole coastal environment.

You can look over to Sweden, and the ocean is strong enough to wash the beach clean all the time. Rocky, of course, but beautiful. I’d like to think I’d be okay with that, but I’d probably prefer the woods. There’s something about the forest for me. I think the ocean would drive you crazy in the end — it’s too much.

When we did ‘Oxen’, we had 20 days of shooting in that camp, and it was just amazing. Something about the forest calms me down — the trees, the wind whispering in them. I think the ocean would drive me nuts eventually.

Nordic Watchlist: So somewhere more central — like Funen, maybe?

Jacob: Yeah, something like that. Maybe the north of Jutland — there’s a lot of forest up there.

Will there be a second season of Chaos?

Nordic Watchlist: Coming back to Chaos. Do you think there’s a chance we might see a second season?

Jacob: They haven’t even managed to show it in Denmark yet – it premiered in Australia, now it’s premiering in the UK and the US — but it still hasn’t premiered here. Weird, right? I think that needs to happen before we even talk about a second season.

But it would be so cool if we were the first Danish show to get a second season based on international sales. That would be a fun story to tell.

Nordic Watchlist: That would be a great story!

Chaos releases on Viaplay UK on May 18 and Viaplay USA on May 22.

Written by: Alex Minnis, Founder of Nordic Watchlist