Aksel Hennie is a Norwegian actor, writer and director. He has acted ina number of successful Norwegian movies, and has received severalawards. Hennie grew up in Lambertseter in Oslo. In his late teens hewas sentenced for tagging, and became an outcast in the community forconfessing to the police. This personal story contributed much of thebackground for the movie Uno. The conviction against Hennie was in factone of the first such cases in Norway. Hennie was admitted to theNorwegian National Academy of Theatre after applying four times. Hegraduated in 2001, and has since acted both at Teatret in Molde from2001 to 2002 and at Oslo Nye Teater from 2002 till now where he hasbeen in plays such as Hamlet, and The woman who married a turkey. Hismain success, however, has been as a film actor. He made his debutstarring in the feature film Jonny Vang in 2003. Though the director,Jens Lien, originally thought Hennie was too young for the role, theactor convinced him he was the right man for the film. The same year healso acted in the movies Buddy and Ulvesommer, and the next year hemade his debut as a director and writer with the movie Uno, in which healso acted.[5] For this film Hennie, and his co-star Nicolai CleveBroch, went into hard physical training for six months to performconvincingly as bodybuilders. He won the Amanda Award (the mainNorwegian film award) for "The Best Direction" (for the movie Uno in2005), and that same year he was also among the nominees for "BestActor" and "Best Film". He also won an Amanda award as "Best Actor" forthe movie Jonny Vang in 2003. He was named one of European films"Shooting Stars" by European Film Promotion in 2004. In 2001 he wasalso named "Theatre talent of the year" by the newspaper Dagbladet. In2008 Hennie starred in the movie Max Manus, where he played the role ofthe Norwegian war hero by that name. The movie had a large budget byNorwegian standards, and was met with great expectations.