Henrik Norman(I)
- Actor
- Producer
- Writer
Henrik Norman (full name Erik Karl Henrik Norman) was born in Lund, Sweden. He currently lives in Stockholm.
He grew up in southern Sweden in an academic family, his father being the head of the speech therapy department at the university, and his mother an English and French teacher. He was their only child, though later he gained three half-siblings on his father's side. He has four children of his own.
Henrik's native language is Swedish, but he speaks fluent English and has an intermediate knowledge of French and German, languages in which he has also performed acting roles. His English pronunciation is British (RP), and his Swedish speech is either neutral or features the southern Scanian dialect.
He completed both his primary and secondary education in Lund. He earned his university degree at Lund University, majoring in political science, macroeconomics, and history, and also studied French for one semester at Uppsala University.
Henrik began his career as a journalist and then worked for nine years as a diplomat at the Swedish Ministry for Foreign Affairs, dealing with disarmament, multilateral security negotiations and press. He was stationed for two years in Vienna and Helsinki. In 1994, he started pursuing acting and left his diplomatic career in the autumn of 1997 to focus on acting full-time.
He has participated in numerous acting courses, including at Stockholm's High School for Performing Arts, Kulturama and Folkuniversitetet institutions. He also took private lessons from renowned Swedish actor and director Philip Zandén and film director Jan Halldoff. Additionally, he worked with prominent professionals from the Actors' Studio, the Royal Shakespeare Company, and the Russian Theatre Academy.
His stage work spans a wide range of classical and contemporary plays, including roles in August Strindberg's Dance of Death, Yasmina Reza's God of Carnage, Anton Chekhov's The Seagull, Jean-Paul Sartre's No Exit, and others. He has appeared in the musical The Full Monty, a Robin Hood outdoor production, and several other major performances.
In his film career, notable roles include Roman commander Lycius in the international film Malay Chronicles: Bloodlines (2011) and hospital director Helge Berglund in the Swedish film The Sugar Experiment (2023). His own short film, Stroke of Midnight (2019), was screened at over 80 festivals worldwide and earned him several Best Actor awards.
His television roles include a detective in the Swedish series Rederiet (1999), a businessman in the Norwegian series Hotel Caesar (2004), Victor Rask in the Swedish series Farang (2017), and a deputy headmaster in the web series When You Are Lärare (2017).
Henrik has narrated numerous audio books (19 so far) and has voiced characters in video games such as Little Misfortune and Residue.
A versatile actor, he comfortably performs in both dramatic and comedic roles. His acting approach is strongly musical; he enjoys plays with strong dialogue and values the visual aspect of stage productions. He is greatly inspired by actors such as Kevin Kline, Benedict Cumberbatch, Colin Firth, Cate Blanchett, Julianne Moore, and Annette Bening.
In his free time, he engages in music, literature, and art. He enjoys boating and maintaining a large summer house. As a child, he played ice hockey, is a good skater and skier (mainly alpine but also cross-country), plays tennis, and dances.
Henrik has also worked as a producer, co-owning productions such as the short film Stroke of Midnight (2019) and the feature film 7X - Our Kids (2010).
His personal motto, engraved on his ring, is: "Avancez" - move forward!