15/10/2012 - The Danish comedian plays a gambler of easy virtues in new film with fellow comedian Rasmus Berg

Danish comedian Casper Christensen (photo), whose Clown [+see also:
trailer
film profile] (2010) became the best-grossing Danish film (almost 900,000 admissions) on home turf in 20 years, has started Player, his new starring vehicle, on locations in Nice.

While co-starring with fellow comedian Frank Hvam in Clown, Player will be the seventh feature by Tomas Villum Jensen (most recently At World's End [+see also:
trailer
film profile]/2009), and Christensen will play the lead opposite another Danish comedian, Rasmus Bjerg.

"I always wanted to work with Bjerg, and since I have never been on the Côte d’Azur with Villum without getting drunk, I thought this film should be my mission for the autumn," explained Christensen, who also performs with Ellen Hillingsø, Lars Brygmann, Mille Lehfeldt, Lisbeth Wullf, Jens Jørn Spottag, Lise Koefoed and Ditte Arnt.

Scripted by Marie Østerbye, Player follows a righteous, self-controlled and rather boring lawyer (Bjerg), who is sent to Nice on a divorce case. As he arrives, everything starts go wrong – he is cheated out of $2 million company money and the future looks bleak, when he meets his old buddy, a gambler of easy virtue (Christensen).

Produced on a €2.5 million budget by Malene Blenkov and Michael Schønnemann for Blenkov & Schønnemann, with Danish pubcaster DRTV and supported by the Danish Film Institute, the film will be released domestically on June 20, 2013, by Nordisk Film A/S.

Meanwhile Clown, a spin-off from Christensen and Hvam's TV series which they also scripted, will return in a Hollywood version from Warner Bros. US actor-director-writer Danny McBride has been signed to write and star in the feature, produced by Todd Phillips and his Great Hat Films, of The Hangover Part 1-2-and soon-3 fame.