Asbæk was born in Copenhagen, the son of gallery owners Maria Patricia and Jacob A. Asbæk, who run Galerie Asbæk in Copenhagen. His mother was born in Casablanca, Morocco, to a Danish father and a French mother. His father is from Hammel. He has two older brothers, Thomas Asbæk, an art consultant at Asbæk Art Consulting, and Martin Asbæk, a gallery owner at Martin Asbæk Gallery. Asbæk went to boarding school at Herlufsholm School where he was active in drama productions. He graduated from Denmark's Danish National School of Performing Arts in summer 2008.
Career
Television
In 2009, Asbæk played soldier David Grüner in an episode of the second season of Danish TV seriesThe Killing. From 2010 to 2013, Asbæk played spin-doctor Kasper Juul in the critically lauded Danish TV seriesBorgen written by Tobias Lindholm about the politics of a female prime minister of Denmark. Asbæk's performance was uniformly praised by critics. In 2014, the Danish public-funded DR cast Asbæk as Didrich, a landowner suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder, in a big-budget period TV series called 1864. In 2016, Asbæk joined the HBO seriesGame of Thronesin Season 6 as Euron Greyjoy.
Film
In 2011, Asbæk starred in another piece by Tobias Lindholm, in the film, R, as a Danish convict, portraying a harrowing prison experience. The film was shot in the Dogme 95-inspired style. The next year, in 2012, Asbæk starred in another Tobias Lindholm film called A Hijacking, about Somalian piracy, for which he transformed himself physically, gaining weight to imbue the role with method acting. In 2013, Asbæk portrayed a flamboyant Danish tycoon named Simon Spies in the movie Sex, Drugs & Taxation. Asbæk co-stars opposite in the film with his wife's cousin, the actor Nicolas Bro, who plays the other main character, Mogens Glistrup. In 2014, Asbæk starred opposite Scarlett Johansson in the Luc Besson film, Lucy. Also in 2014, Asbæk appeared in the Bille August film, Silent Heart, in which his mother-in-law, Danish actress Vigga Bro, plays the character Lisbeth. In 2015, Asbæk again collaborated with director Tobias Lindholm in the film, A War, playing a soldier in Afghanistan. The film premiered at the Venice Film Festival. Asbæk co-starred in the 2016 remake of Ben-Hur, starring Jack Huston and Morgan Freeman. He portrayed Pontius Pilate. In 2017, he played Batou in Ghost in the Shell. Asbaek plays the lead role as police investigator Anders Olsen in the upcoming 2018 movie The Guardian Angel, opposite Josh Lucas. Written and directed by Arto Halonen, the movie is based on actual events. The plot revolves around the bizarre case of Hypnose murders which took place in Copenhagen in 1951.
Theater
2008: Folk og røvere i Kardemomme By – Bellevue Teatret
Asbæk's wife is playwright :da:Anna Bro|Anna Bro, who has been his partner since 2008. She is the daughter of the actors Hans Henrik Clemensen and Vigga Bro and comes from an extended family of actors. The nickname Pilou came from his mother's French ancestry, and is a French version of the word Pip. The nickname is because Asbæk was the youngest son, in French, "petit" for littlest, "Little Philip." Pilou is an abbreviation of Petit Philip. Asbæk's godfather was the late artist, Kurt Trampedach.
