Borgen made the actors playing Danish politicians into stars. Danish PM Helle Thorning-Schmidt, who posed for a “selfie “ with Obama and Cameron, clearly wants to share the limelight and so too does her husband Stephen Kinnock, son of ex-Labour leader Lord Kinnock.
Back in 2007, while he was head of the British Council in St Petersburg, Kinnock Jr briefly moonlighted as an actor, starring in little-known Russian film Haute Couture Dress. Director Tatyana Karaeva met him at a festival, thought he “looked like a young Tom Hanks” and asked him to play a rich young American who wants to marry a beautiful Russian girl.
Kinnock’s only previous role was in a nativity play aged nine but he leapt at the chance — once he’d got the go-ahead from his wife. Just as well, as the film features him in a bubble bath. “Luckily she doesn’t judge me so much on my acting talents,” he told Danish newspaper Politiken.
