The fang-tastic rise of Dracula’s Claes Bang! Danish star went from a jobbing actor to Hollywood darling after a breakout role in an Oscar-nominated film aged 50 – but his artist wife insists it hasn’t changed him
STEPHANIE LINNING
- Claes Bang, 52, is the raffishly handsome star of the BBC’s three-part Dracula
- The Danish actor has had a meteoric rise after a breakout role at the age of 50
- Until being cast in The Square, Bang was not even a household name in Denmark
- He has since appeared in The Affair and prompted a James Bond campaign
Dracula became an instant hit after its hotly-anticipated premiere – and made an overnight star of its dashing Danish leading man.
Viewers across the country were gripped by Claes Bang’s ‘excellent’ performance as the world’s most famous vampire – with some declaring it their favourite ever portrayal of the iconic horror character. Others found themselves distracted by Bang’s devilishly handsome good looks, swooning over the ‘amazingly hot’ Count.
It marks the latest success in what has been an extraordinary mid-career ascent for Bang who, up until a few years ago, was not even a household name in his native Denmark.
The global critical acclaim brought calls from LA agents, a role in The Affair and a film co-starring Sir Mick Jagger and Donald Sutherland.
But unlike so many leading men, Bang appears unphased by showbiz trappings, leaving a Cannes Film Festival after party early and declaring the Oscars the ‘ugliest place’ he’d seen.
A quick glance at his Instagram, where he boasts a modest 9,000 followers, and it is clear to see his focus is his wife and ‘love of his life’ Lis Kasper, a photographer and make-up artist, her two daughters, both in their 30s, and his step-grandson.
Journalists have declared Bang as ‘self-deprecating’ and ‘disarmingly frank’ but perhaps the biggest sign of how little he’s changed comes from Lis, who said in an interview that he’s ‘just as nice’ as he was when they first met.
Bang and his wife Lis met on set in 2002 and have been married for 13 years. But you would be forgiven for thinking the couple are newlyweds, judging by the sweet selfies and romantic captions that light-up their Instagram feeds.
Lis spent much of her youth in Cape Town where she worked as a model and trained as a make-up artist. She is now one of Denmark’s leading talents, working across film, theatre, advertising and fashion.
After staring taking photographs as a hobby, Lis turned the pursuit into a professional endeavour, focusing primarily on portraits.
Her work was recently shown at an exhibition in Copenhagen, which Bang proudly promoted on his Instagram.
The actor frequently shares photos of his elegant wife, also in her early 50s, with captions declaring her the ‘love of his life’.
Bang has no children of his own but is a proud stepfather to Lis’ two daughters, Bella and Sara, who are both in their early 30s.
Sara followed her mother into a career as a make-up artist, while Bella is a student at the University of Copenhagen and the city’s Danish School of Media and Journalism.
Bang is also a ‘step-grandfather’ to 10-year-old Sylvester.
Posting on Instagram in September, Bang revealed Sara is expecting a baby in March and shared his excitement at becoming a grandfather for a second time.
Thrown off by the star’s youthful good looks, one disbelieving Instagram follower commented: ‘You are too young and gorgeous to be a grandfather.’
Bang was accepted into the prestigious Danish National School of Theatre and Contemporary Dance at the age of 25 – but had to wait almost three decades for the role that would make him a star.
Ruben Östlund cast Bang, then best known for his theatre work and German TV shows, as art curator Christian in his critically-acclaimed sophomore film The Square, which won the Palme d’Or at the 2017 Cannes Film Festival and was nominated for a Golden Globe and Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film.
The success put Bang on the radar of LA agents and international filmmakers, and brought with it invitations to red carpets around the world.
Film and TV offers came flooding in after The Square, although Bang confesses some he enjoyed more than others.
In 2018 he appeared opposite The Crown’s Claire Foy in The Girl in the Spider’s Web but admits the style of film was not suited to him.
Speaking to the Sunday Times Magazine in 2018, he said: ‘You sit in a trailer for eight hours, they pull you out, stick a gun in your hand, you empty the gun into a car, then they put you back in the trailer. It’s not my kind of game.’
The film was followed by Lyrebird and The Burnt Orange Heresy, co-starring Sir Mick Jagger, Donald Sutherland and Elizabeth Debicki. Photos of the cast cruising down a canal at the Venice Film Festival last year show Bang does not look out of place alongside his A-list co-stars.
But to British TV viewers he is likely to be best known as Sasha Mann, the charismatic, A-list movie star who played Helen’s (Maura Tierney) love interest in the fifth and final season of The Affair.
Bang will next be seen in crime drama The Bay Of Silence. Two more films, The Northman and The New Mrs Keller, are in pre-production.
Unlike other stars who have enjoyed such a meteoric rise, Bang appears unaffected by his newfound fame – and decidedly unimpressed by the inner-workings of Hollywood.
In the Sunday Times Magazine interview, Bang described the most ‘ugly place you’ve ever seen. ‘It’s like a shopping mall,’ he said. ‘It’s terrible, the most boring show and goddamn long.’
The Golden Globes that season were slightly more bareable, thanks to Bang consuming two marijuana jelly beans that left him ‘unable to stand’ by the end of the night.
