Joel Kinnaman
Joel Kinnaman
Charles Joel Nordström Kinnaman, known professionally as Joel Kinnaman, is a Swedish-American actor. He is best known for playing the lead role in the Swedish film Easy Money, a role that earned him a Guldbagge Award in the "Best Actor" category, and also for his roles as Frank Wagner in the Johan Falk film series and Governor Will Conway in the U.S. version of House of Cards. He starred on AMC's The Killing as detective Stephen Holder and played Alex...
NationalitySwedish
ProfessionActor
Date of Birth25 November 1979
CountrySweden
Nobody wants to be depressed - everybody's trying to feel better; when they strive and fail, it's all the more poignant.
In terms of whether my mom was influential, I think she instilled a certain way of thinking in me quite early: having a reflective mindset regarding my actions and trying to find the underlying reasons to behavior. I think that's quite helpful when you're trying to understand a character.
You can make an interesting character in a small portion of a movie, for a character that doesn't have that much on the page, if you just find the contradictions. That's something that I try to bring to my performances.
You're always trying to look for material that is as challenging as possible, so that's why I like stuff where the characters go through the most difficult times they've ever had in their life. It makes me push myself further and learn more about myself.
I speak English with my dad and Swedish with my mom; it's quite schizophrenic.
The way I live my life or conduct myself when I have a problem is very different from many of the characters I play.
I've learned to steer away from the wrong kind of woman for me.
I was on a Swedish soap opera when I was 10.
I would like to be able to do as many of my own stunts where I can.
Mid-range to low-budget movies have to have a name in the lead to get financing for it.
When it's a moral grey zone, the audience has to think about what they feel and what they think is right or wrong. You want to affect your audience and make them think.
When I first heard 'Robocop' was going to be remade. I said, 'Yeah, that's interesting. I'll probably watch that at some point, but I'm not interested at all to be in it.'
When I first came to the States, I thought I had a perfect American accent, and then I was abruptly becoming aware that it wasn't. So I did have to work on it a little bit, but I was hesitant working on it because I thought it was good.
I grew up in a working class neighborhood in Sweden, which, during my teens, gentrified and is now completely middle class and even upper middle class.