Although he found success almost 30 years ago with the lead role in The Night’s Watch, Danish Nikolaj Coster-Waldau remains today synonymous with Jaime Lannister, the complex character he played for eight seasons of Game of Thrones and which was nominated twice for the Emmy. The actor returns to television with Lo último que me dijo, the new Apple TV miniseries in which he stars with Jennifer Garner, in which he embodies an enigma: the husband and father who suddenly disappears and his absence leads to the discovery of a parallel life her that she has been able to hide perfectly.
In Lo último que me dijo he interprets a memory before a character…
In general, yes, and it’s very interesting because I find memory a fascinating subject. It is something that cannot be trusted, because memories are not objective. If we are asked a week from now about this conversation, each of us will tell a different version. And in that sense, participating in this series was an interesting challenge, because 70% of my scenes are the memories that the other characters have of me. Obviously I had to find a way around it. And to tell you the truth, I didn’t realize it until we started recording.
Many years ago we talked about a movie he shot in Bolivia, but I don’t remember where or when it was…
exactly I don’t remember the place either, but we did talk about Blackthorn: sin destino. And the funniest thing is that, if I told you that we made tea that day, whether it’s true or not, you will incorporate the tea into your memory. When you think of childhood, of memories, things that others have told you or photographs you have seen will be mixed up. We could talk about memories all day.
But in the series, it depends on Jennifer Garner’s character to discover the truth…
It’s like this. The same goes for Angourie Rice, who plays my daughter, who always wants to activate memories she has covered up. Finding the truth this way is difficult. Without explaining much about the plot, I think one of the themes of the series is also the loss of a loved one, and how when you lose someone who disappears, you become something different. If someone dies young, they will acquire mythical characteristics in the people who remember them. Here there is no character who dies, but becomes a mythical creature in the lives of others.
The answer to who Owen is is in Laura Dave’s novel that the series is inspired by. Did he play the real character or the memory of others?
It was a mix. Obviously when he appears in the present it is him and then there are all these versions of who this man is. When you’re madly in love with someone, you only see them one way. You can’t see his flaws and there are a couple of scenes like that, where Jennifer remembers Owen as a perfect man. And then we see scenes where he’s not so kind, because now she’s remembering him in a different way.
How much resistance did you have to return to television, even though this is a miniseries?
The truth is that you never know what will happen in the future, but ten years is a long time. Anyway, I had a great time playing Game of Thrones. I have been very lucky. When it was finished, I made small films that I loved, both in Europe and in the United States. And suddenly this project appeared. I thought it was an interesting series, and it is a story that is told from beginning to end in seven episodes. I like the format of the miniseries. I like that a series has a predetermined ending before I sit down to watch it. That’s why I wait a couple of years before I start watching one, because I don’t like open endings.
