Biography
Connie Inge-Lise Nielsen (born 3 July 1965) is a Danish actress. She has starred as Lucilla in the films Gladiator (2000) and Gladiator II (2024) and as Queen Hippolyta in the DC Extended Universe (2017–2021). She has also starred in films such as Soldier (1998), Mission to Mars (2000), One Hour Photo (2002), Basic (2003), The Hunted (2003), The Ice Harvest (2005), Nymphomaniac (2013), 3 Days to Kill (2014), Inheritance (2020), Nobody (2021) and its sequel Nobody 2 (2025).
She also had roles as New York Police Department Detective Dani Beck, the temporary partner of Christopher Meloni's Elliot Stabler in the NBC crime drama series Law & Order: Special Victims Unit (2006), the Starz political drama series Boss (2011–2012), the Fox crime thriller series The Following (2014), and the TNT limited drama series I Am the Night (2019), and starred in the Channel 4 drama series Close to Me (2021).
== Early life ==
Nielsen was born in Frederikshavn and grew up in the village of Elling, Denmark. Her father, Bent Nielsen, was a bus driver, and her mother, Laila Inge-lise Matzigkeit (1945–2014), was an insurance clerk, who also acted and wrote musical reviews. She was raised as a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, a Mormon.
She began her acting career working alongside her mother on the local revue and variety scene. At 18, she traveled to Paris, where she worked as an actress and model, which led to further work and study in Italy—at drama school in Rome and in master classes with Lydia Styx, a teacher at Piccolo Teatro di Milano in Milan. She lived in Italy for many years before moving to the United States.
