Pål Sverre Hagen
☼ Born on 6 December 1980, in Stavanger, Norway
Biography
Pål Sverre Hagen is one of Scandinavia's most prominent and versatile actors. His work include more than fifty film and television titles in addition to his substantial stage work. He is perhaps best known for his roles in Oscar nominated Kon-Tiki, Troubled Water, In Order of Disappearance and Amundsen. Most recently his roles in Bent Hamer's The Middleman and Netflix series War Sailor has earned him further acclaim. He also played one of the fun loving but highly questionable lead characters of Exit, one of Scandinavia's most popular TV series ever.
Hagen had his big breakthrough as church organ playing convict in Troubled Water (2008) directed by Erik Poppe.
He achieved world wide recognition for portraying legendary explorer Thor Heyerdahl in the epic historical feature Kon-Tiki (2012) directed by Espen Sandberg and Joachim Rønning. Kon-Tiki was nominated for an Academy Award and a Golden Globe Award and he won an Amanda award for his role.
He went on to win the best actor award at Austin Fantastic Fest for his role as "the Count", eccentric villain and crime lord in the comedy action feature In Order of Disappearance (2014) alongside Stellan Skarsgård and Bruno Ganz. He also played the antagonist of the Danish thriller A Conspiracy of Faith (2016), both films directed by Hans Petter Moland.
Hagen has also starred in several TV series such as Buzz Aldrin (NRK, 2011), and the highly acclaimed drama series Valkyrien (NRK, 2017), for which he won the Golden Screen Award
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for Best Actor. His most recent work includes German/Norwegian thriller Furia and Lone Scherfigs hospital drama The Shift.
In 2019, Pål Sverre Hagen stepped into the role of yet another iconic captain and explorer, Roald Amundsen, the first person to reach the South Pole in Espen Sandberg's feature Amundsen (2019). He moved on to TV series Exit (2019) which ended up being seen by almost half of Norways population and continued to run for three seasons. He also finished the shoot of Halo of Stars playing the lead character alongside Lily Collins and Holliday Grainger, directed by Anthony Lucero.
In Bent Hamer's The Middleman he played eccentric opportunist Frank Farelli looking to find a better life in the fictional American town of Karmack. The role earned Hagen an Amanda Award and a Golden Silk Road Award.
His roles as working class family man in drama comedy Diana's Wedding, stubborn loner Johan in Every body hates Johan, and involuntary war hero Sigbjørn in War Sailor ads to his body of work and continues to prove his ability to shape shift into an incredibly wide range of characters.
In the role of actor
The Middle Man – TIFF21 (12/09/2021)
A small-town man gets a job to be the bearer of bad news in The Middle Man. Frank Farelli (Pål Sverre Hagen) enters the town hall of Karmack to be interviewed by The Commission of The Sherrif (Paul Gross), The Doctor (Don McKellar), and The Pastor (Nicolas Bro). The job Frank is interviewing for is […]