Interview with Tomas Kofod

I've been looking for different portrayals of Christ today - As I looked for some pictures of Tomas Kofod (I heard him speak at a fireside several years ago) I found this article and used google to translate this interview from this Danish online newspaper:

Danish Mormon Known as Jesus in the USA
by Sidsel Fabricius
24 Feb 2012
Hundreds of thousands of American Mormons know him best as Jesus because of his role in two American-made Mormon movies.

Here at home, the 43-year-old Tomas Ambt Kofod, however, a relatively normal life, where he balances between the role of a modern family man, actor and practicing Mormon. Best known from the stage as Ambt Tomas Kofod, he has played leading roles in musicals such as 'Les Miserables' (listen to him singing here - beautiful!!!) and 'The Phantom of the Opera' at the New Theatre.

But early in Tomas Ambt Kofod's career as an actor, he was cast to playing Jesus in the two films The Testaments: Of One Fold and One Shepherd, and Finding Faith in Christ, both produced by the U.S. Mormon church. Therefore, the Dane now known and admired by many more than you'd think and is particularly popular among Mormons in Utah.

Day to day, the 43-year-old Tomas Kofod Ambt lives in Søborg with his wife and their two children. Their family is among about 4,500 Mormons living in Denmark, or just over 14 million worldwide.

On student exchange with a Mormon family in Utah

It all started when Tomas Kofod Ambt as 17-year-old traveled to the USA as an exchange student and ended up in a Mormon family in Utah. The encounter with the Mormons in the United States would prove to be crucial for Ambt Tomas Kofod, which today has been a practicing Mormon for nearly 20 years.

"When I came to the U.S., I was both young and very immature, but the Mormon family gave me both the space and room to be me, while I got an insight into how life in a Mormon family worked," says Tomas Ambt Kofod, who himself was not raised with religion at home.

Of the time with his American host family, he recalls, among other daily life, their religion took a large part in their day to day life:

"They were nice to take me to church and to give me a sense of how their faith worked in daily life. And it made a big impression on me, "says Tomas Kofod Ambt and explains:

"You feel very closely connected to each other as family, because there's this eternal perspective within the Mormon church. As a family they do some things together to make this world here a better place. It could be very small things like washing cars, cleaning up in people's basements, help the elderly in the neighborhood with cooking, housekeeping, and the kind deeds. It is to reach out to each other. It was a very positive experience. "

About being a Mormon in Denmark

Although one would think that there was a world of difference between teenage life at home in Denmark and to get behind the walls of the faithful family in Utah, there was still something about the Mormon way of life that seemed very familiar to Kofod.

"From my parents' side, I've been brought up with a great sense of justice and has always taught that one should live his life conscientiously, loving and friendly."

In his meetings with the Mormon church, Kofod didn't feel like give something up. Instead, the Mormon faith was a really good extension of the core values ​​he had learned from home.

When Kofod took leave of the Mormon family in Utah, they gave him a Book of'Mormon to take with him. In the years after he came home, he occasionally took the book down from the shelf to read a little into it.

"At one point I was sufficiently curious. I, I had to know something more about what it was that I had experienced over there. "

So Kofod in 1993, at the age of 24 years, was baptized into the church. He has been practicing Mormon since.

The Kofod family works in many ways like an ordinary Danish family.

"We want as many others simply do something good for society and want our children grow up and become sweet and harmonious people," says Kofod.

But since the Mormons are a relatively small movement in Denmark, Kofod sometimes meets people who are a bit prejudice when they hear about his faith.

"Overall, I think people are incredibly sweet and good to ask about religion - sometimes even too sweet and too cautious with their questions. Mormons have often been seen as a sectarian and closed society, but nothing could be more wrong, "says Kofod.

"We love visitors, but we do not force. Well, you can easily get rid of us again. So it is not for the foot-in-door method, "he smiles and explains:

"One of the most fundamental principles of the church is precisely that we should be able to choose for ourselves."

About the grief of losing

Kofod recently experienced the loss of his father, to whom he was very close. In his fathers' passing, Kofod really felt how his faith helped him. He saw how the Mormon belief in eternal life after death, in many ways made the grief easier to bear:

"Having a complete fundamental belief that we will meet again on the other side and that we can be together as a family forever, and not just in this life, gives me an inner peace and solace," says from a clearly affected Ambt Tomas Kofod, who continues:

"I do not feel that the grief was so profound and oppressive as I really had expected. I know that he is just over on the other side, and it's just a matter of time before we can meet again. "

In this way, faith made the grieving process easier for Kofod, also through prayer he finds inner strength and power to get through the difficult aspects of life, such as losing.

Role of Jesus

Playing the role of Jesus was not a very common challenge for the actor Kofod, when he was a Mormon has a special relationship with Jesus.

He looks back at some of the many thoughts, he made himself during the preparation for the role:

"How can I, as little useless man, radiate the kind of love that Jesus did?"

As part of preparations for the role, Kofod thoroughly read all the places in the Bible where Jesus appears and spent much time both to think and meditate upon him.

"It was all in all a very humbling experience," remembers Kofod, explaining that during his time in his youth playfulness, said yes, because it was the first major movie role, he was offered. And he got the offer today, he probably thought one more time about it, he says.

"But it has undoubtedly been a very big piece of my spiritual and personal development to be allowed to delve into such a role," he says. He has subsequently visited several countries such as Germany, Estonia, Lithuania , Poland, Sweden and the U.S. for talks on how he prepared himself to play the role of Jesus, and what impact it has had on him afterwards.

"As I have grown older as man and had more experience, I also got myself thoroughly looked in the mirror. The differences between oneself and the Savior appears therefore more clearly. The more one learns about life, the more apparent it becomes how great the Savior is and how far from him, you yourself are. I also found out that I am immortally less than I thought. "