Johan Heldenbergh

He was born on 9 February 1967 in Wilrijk, Belgium, and trained at Studio Herman Teirlinck. From the 1990s he worked in Flemish television and film, in roles in Antonia (1995), Ben X (2007), Aanrijding in Moscou (Moscow, Belgium, 2008) and De helaasheid der dingen (The Misfortunates, 2009). In 2006 he and Arne Sierens formed the theater company Compagnie Cecilia, for which he wrote and directed, and he wrote and directed the film Schellebelle 1919 (2011).

He and Dobbels wrote The Broken Circle Breakdown featuring the Cover-Ups of Alabama for Compagnie Cecilia, a love story set in a bluegrass band, and acted in it together. Van Groeningen’s film, from a screenplay he wrote with Carl Joos, opened in Belgium in October 2012, with Heldenbergh as Didier, who plays banjo in a bluegrass group in Ghent, and Veerle Baetens as Elise, the tattoo artist who becomes its singer. The actors performed all the music in the band scenes, with a band built around the film’s composer, Bjorn Eriksson. The film won the César for Best Foreign Film and the 2013 Lux Prize and was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film.

On the soundtrack album, released by Universal Music Belgium on 19 October 2012, Heldenbergh sings lead with Baetens, playing banjo on “The Boy Who Wouldn’t Hoe Corn” and guitar on “Over in the Gloryland.” Their duet on Townes Van Zandt’s “If I Needed You” reached No. 8 on the Flemish singles chart, and the album held No. 1 for twelve weeks and went double platinum. The band then toured, and Heldenbergh, on vocals, guitar and banjo, is on its live album Unbroken! Live in Concert (2014), which reached No. 20 in Flanders and added songs such as “Sin City” and “The One I Love Is Gone.”

He has since worked widely in Belgian, French and international films, among them The Zookeeper’s Wife (2017), as Jan Zabinski, and Quo Vadis, Aida? (2020), as Colonel Thom Karremans.