TheKinnamanSquad

Latest Projects

For All Mankind

Season 4
Rocketing into the new millennium in the eight years since Season 3, Happy Valley has rapidly expanded its footprint on Mars by turning former foes into partners. Now 2003, the focus of the space...

Sympathy for the Devil

2023 Jul
After being forced to drive a mysterious passenger at gunpoint, a man finds himself in a high-stakes game of cat and mouse where it becomes clear that not everything is as it seems.

Silent Night

2023
A grieving father enacts his long-awaited revenge against a ruthless gang on Christmas Eve.

Interview: From ‘Suicide Squad’ to ‘House of Cards,’ Season 5 Return

Just a warning that the following interview by The Hollywood Reporter contains spoilers from the fourth season of House of Cards

Will is about making videos, taking selfies, and using social media to appeal to his voters. How do you think his character reflects the current presidential candidates in the real life election where they’re active on Twitter and Snapchat?

This election is just crazy, more unpredictable than anyone could have imagined. What we’re portraying in this show with social media playing a bigger part to appeal to a younger demographic in the way he’s promoting himself and what they both have in common is what previously kind of was perceived as something that was beneath a presidential candidacy. I think this presidential campaign we’re seeing especially on the Republican side, there’s very few things left that we ever thought we were going to see in a presidential election. After we seen a presidential candidate implying how big his dick is, I think there’s not much left for shock value.

Do you think there are parallels with your character and any of the candidates? Or any other characters?

I think there are more parallels with Donald Trump and [former Prime Minister of Italy] Silvio Berlusconi than anyone else. He’s just his own entity because he’s just a reality star that’s now a presidential candidate. In the ways that Will is using social media, I mean all the candidates use Twitter, but Trump uses it more.

Your addition to the show was pretty tight-lipped. What were the logistics to you joining the series?

It’s like anything when you go into a project, you have to follow the lead of the production and the publicity side of that and how they want to promote it. As many things as I’ve done before, you go into it and you keep it quiet and under wraps and sort of leak the information when everybody feels it’s the right timing. It was an amazing experience with Kevin, and Robin [Wright] and particularly Beau Willimon who I just think is a brilliant, brilliant man. I just had a lot of fun working with the material and also coming to a set and a creative space where there were some pages that we got, but then it was all a creative process that I was invited to participate in and help create the character and give input.

How did Beau bring you on to do the show?

He called my people up and asked if I wanted to be a part of it. Then we started talking about it and I made the decision to join.

What drew you to the role and to join the series?

I loved the show. I think it’s one of the best shows on television, if not the best, and I was a real fan of it, but it was definitely the character and the role. You know there are a lot of roles on phenomenal TV shows that I wouldn’t want to do anyway, but this was something that I thought was special and it was an opportunity to play with Kevin. It was a very fun character.

What scenes were your favorite to film?

I really enjoyed the scenes I had with Kevin. We had, during the Democratic Convention and the scenes we had in this little room — that was a lot of fun. Even though they would get spaced out over a whole episode it came down to a 15-page scene that we shot continuously. It was like we were doing a little mini-TV play, just me and him in that room. He’s such an amazing actor and this character is something he completely embodies. It was like a sparring match and I think we both really enjoyed ourselves in that.

Where do you hope Will goes in season five?

We’ll just have to find out. I mean I have a contract for a few episodes, but we’ll see what happens.
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Joel Kinnaman Visits ‘The Talk’

Joel appeared in the April 22 episode of CBS daytime show, The Talk, where he talked about House of Cards, the Suicide Squad tattoo, and his first visit to Los Angeles. He also confirmed that he and Cleo Wattenstrom are married! Congratulations to the both of them. I have added photos of Joel on the set, and watch his full interview below.


Joel Kinnaman for Mr. Porter

Mr Joel Kinnaman is hungry. As soon as MR PORTER’s photoshoot has wrapped, the 6ft 2in Swede jaywalks across Main Street in Downtown LA and straight into the first restaurant he sees. “Bäco Mercat? Fine. Table for two, please. And I’ll have the steak medium-rare, the Hamachi crudo, the shrimp and the lentil salad.”

The waitress smiles. “OK, then, that’s plenty for two. You know that everything here is meant to be shared?”

“No, that’s just for me,” says Mr Kinnaman, giving her a blank stare. “I’m really hungry.”

He’s not kidding. Mr Kinnaman is bulking up right now. So much so, that MR PORTER’s stylist had to go up a size on the Ermenegildo Zegna collection he is modelling to mark the brand’s arrival on site.

It’s 5.30pm, and time for his second lunch, just a couple of hours before his first dinner, which will be a pound of meat or fish. “I need to make 215lb by November,” he says. “That’s when we start shooting Altered Carbon. It’s Netflix’s biggest show so far, its answer to Game Of Thrones. I have to be ready. In my opening scene I come out in a loin cloth and fight six people.”

So he’s shaving, presumably, like a serious bodybuilder? “Totally. All about the shaving. And baby oil. I carry a jug with me just in case.”

Altered Carbon is a hard, R-rated sci-fi set 500 years in the future. Bodies are dispensable, our personalities are held in microchips and the rich are crushing the poor. A classic dystopia. “A lot of comparisons with Blade Runner,” he says, “but with lots more sex, violence and dismemberment.”

It also goes to show just how high Mr Kinnaman is flying these days. “I was the first one to be cast,” he says. “Projects are being cast around me now.”
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‘Suicide Squad’ Interview: Joel Kinnaman on Intense Training Regimen and Possible Sequels

Tom Hardy originally had your role, but he had to drop out to finish “The Revenant.” How did you get the part?

I was following this project very jealously from the sidelines. All these new cast members were being added, and nobody was calling me. Then I heard about Tommy dropping out. My reps called me and said they’d set up a meeting for me with [director] David Ayer. We sat down in a bar in Toronto and we hit it off. We understood where we were coming from.

In the audition, we just hit it off. The room was gelling. He proved he was an actor’s director. I come from the theater initially, so I respond very well to getting stuff thrown at you. It helps me show what I can do.

How did you prepare?

The first thing David told me was “get big.” So I did that. I gained 35 pounds in three months. Trained a lot. Ate a lot. I did gain a little too much on the belly, so I had to lose that.

I became close with our military advisers on the film. Two of them were former Navy SEALS who went on to become CIA operators. These guys were real life Rick Flags. We went through intense training. We’d go out in the woods and backpack with 50 pounds. They wanted to drain me physically and deprive me of sleep. For 60 hours we’d be doing these workouts. They’d show me videos of cartel beheadings and torture. The most awful things I’ve ever seen. The whole thing culminated with this six-hour exercise where they’d take over this abandoned meat locker — like this underground maze. They enlisted 15 to 20 Canadian military guys. We did these scenarios. Like hostage situations. We’d use blanks, but it was still crazy.

They showed me how you shoot or enter rooms. The most important part was the attitude. This guy isn’t just a top tier operator. He is a commander.

Did Jared Leto stay in character as the Joker throughout the shoot?

Yeah, he sure did. It was amazing to watch him work. I knew Jared before. I knew him personally. But I didn’t see that guy throughout the whole shoot. I met Mr. J. a couple of times. He was magnetic. He pulled off an amazing performance. The commitment and the concentration that he had was inspiring to watch.

He sent me some presents. He sent me a couple of used condoms. A couple of dildos. Some anal beads. Someone asked me, “Did you send him any presents back?” I’m like, “when someone sends you a used condom, I don’t want to play anymore. I don’t like your game, and I don’t want to play.”

Did the cast bond?

It was pretty much a love fest. When you look at what Jared did, sort of setting himself apart, it’s undeniable that concentration gets results. You look at what Daniel Day-Lewis does and it’s the same thing. The detail of his work and the amount of time he spent practicing with the character. It’s just awesome.

What I think you lose with working in that way is the creativity of the ensemble. You have all these artists, these great artists together, and when you are social and when you are playing around, there’s a sense of humor that you can build together. You understand each other’s idiosyncrasies. Even if there’s a contentious relationship between your characters, there’s a humor that you can put into things. You can build comedy into those relationships. That’s what we were after with the squad.

I heard you all got tattoos together?

Yes. That was a great life decision.

Are you signed for more “Suicide Squad” sequels? Will Rick Flag appear in other DC Comics movies?

We’ll see. Maybe we’ll make more “Suicide Squad” movies. Who knows? The audience will decide.

If there’s like military involved in one of the other films than maybe they’ll call me. You can definitely see how Amanda Waller [the government agent played by Viola Davis] has a place in the other films. Maybe I’ll tag along with her.

There were reportedly a lot of re-shoots to fix the tone of the film and make it funnier. Was that true?

No. We did 95% action. It was just added action. That was a constructed narrative. It surprised me that it gets traction with people who should understand the film business better. Any film with a $125 or $135 million budget always has a block of re-shoots. Some do a week and some do a full month. It’s built into it. When you do a regular film the editor and the director will put together the movie and think, “Oh man, if we just had a little beat. It would elevate that.” But they have to work around it and work with what they have. On these big films they always have the luxury of going back and getting that beat and elevating it even more.

We’re all scheduled for a re-shoot period before we start the film. They put so much money into the shooting of these films and the marketing that to them it’s always worth getting it right.

Have you seen your “Suicide Squad” action figure yet?

I’m pretty much a veteran in the action figure game. I got my “RoboCop.” I got my “Suicide Squad.” It’s what I do.

You seem to do a lot of different types of projects. Indie films, television, big budget adventures. Do you fear typecasting?

That’s the main challenge. I try to do as many roles as I can. My favorite actors play very different kinds of parts. If I were ever to be so lucky to have an audience that was anticipating a film that I was going to do, I would love for them to have a feeling when my film was coming out to be thinking, “I wonder what he’s going to do with this role.”

Source: Variety

Joel Kinnaman for The Laterals

I read that you grew up in Sweden, but your father was American. Could you tell us what it was it like growing up there and what kind of influence that bicultural exposure had on you?
Growing up in Sweden, I went to an English school where there was a huge mix of kids with different nationalities from all over town. Some of them were wealthy diplomatic kids, and some were from the ghetto suburbs. Going to school in that sort of context around so many different ethnicities and walks of life made me feel that I wasn’t completely Swedish, but that I was more a part of this global, second-generation immigrant community because my father was American.

As a kid, who would you say inspired you to begin acting and why?
It was a combination of things. My sister was an actress, so I saw her do her thing and understood that it was a profession that I could take seriously and do for a living. It also helped that she found a lot of success at a young age and got to work with all the great Swedish film directors such as Lasse Hallström, Ingmar Bergman, and Bo Widerberg, so that really sparked my interest. I also had a good friend of mine that was really into acting, so I was surrounded and exposed to the craft from a pretty young age.

How did you begin your acting career?
After high school I decided I was going to travel for 7 years to make up my mind about life. So to save up money, I planned to work in construction and do all these odd jobs while traveling, but I only got through 1.5 years of that [Laughs.] and decided to apply to the Swedish National acting school. I didn’t get in right away though. It took a while because in Sweden, you have to prepare monologues to apply, and they only accept about 10 applicants out of 1,500. But as I began preparing these monologues, I was able to viscerally experience the material in a way where I could shape the words and move through the scene as if I was actually there. I had this feeling that I might actually be good at this and became hooked. Needless to say, I got accepted to the program.
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Joel Kinnaman Talks ‘Suicide Squad’ Reactions and ‘Edge of Winter’

What’s been your reaction to Suicide Squad‘s negative critical reception?
Of course, you want to get great reviews. But the existence of an actor is basically, 95% of the time, we’re being told that, no, that wasn’t quite right. You have to develop pretty thick skin, and make yourself not completely dependent on what other people think.

In a film like Suicide Squad, the main ambition is to entertain. It doesn’t have any political aspirations. It doesn’t really dig deep, other than to portray these characters honestly. So with that kind of ambition, it becomes even more important what the fans think. I was disappointed, and I thought it was unjust the way that we were reviewed in some of the magazines. But at the same time, I was really happy, and actually a bit blown away, by the fans’ response. I don’t remember ever seeing a bigger split between what the critics and the audience thought of a film. It was a pretty big difference.

Would you be up for a sequel?
For sure. We had so much fun making this film. We really became a little family. So if nothing else, I want to do another one just so I can hang out with all of my friends again. I definitely think that, if this film is successful, then they’re going to do another one.

Did you film Edge of Winter before or after Suicide Squad?
Before. I finished Edge of Winter eight days before my first shooting day on Suicide Squad. It was fortunate that they were both sort of in the same neck of the woods. I shot Edge of Winter in Sudbury, Canada, which is a 4- to 5-hour drive from Toronto. So on a couple of the weekends that I had on Edge, I went down to Toronto and did some stunt training and stuff like that.

I would have loved a little bit more time in between them, but you don’t get that luxury. I had five days between Suicide Squad and House of Cards after that, so it was a pretty hectic year.

How do you manage such a transition, especially between such varied projects?
You just flip that switch, and you focus on what’s ahead of you. Edge of Winter was such a short shoot. We shot it in 19 days, and probably with a smaller budget than the catering department had on Suicide Squad[laughs]. But at the same time, every day on a film like this, you’re doing something substantial. And this character was one of the most challenging I’ve ever done. That’s what drew me to the film, was the opportunity to try to portray and give an understanding to a man, and to a type of man — you know, it’s so hard to find a redeeming quality about a man that becomes a threat to the life of his own children. I’m drawn to a lot of different kinds of characters, but I felt that this was a really unique opportunity. A character like this, he can say a lot about our whole society. Because some people are wired in a certain way where they’re just not quite able to function in society if they don’t get a very special attention, or if they fall under certain circumstances.

I found that really intriguing — and not just to do a villain; to give an audience an understanding of what’s behind this kind of behavior. Because I think that understanding is the key. When we just rule somebody out as crazy, that’s when we can’t learn from our mistakes, and that’s when we can’t prevent [bad choices] from happening again. There are a lot of films made about revenge and these primal emotions, which I have a lot of understanding for. But it’s also really important to make films where somebody that has done something incomprehensible — you can at least see what kind of person he is, and where he came from. I think it makes us more whole, to get that kind of understanding. I think this was an opportunity to do that, but in a film that’s also a very exciting, heart-thumping psychological thriller.

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Interview: Joel Kinnaman Talks ‘House of Cards’ Season 5

Joel talked with The Hollywood Reporter about the new season of House of Cards, his character, Will Conway, and how the season shares political parallels with the real-life U.S. elections. Just a heads up that this entire interview contains major spoilers!

This season Will’s arc is a bit more emotional and rather devastating. What mind set did you get into the role this time around? 

I really settled into the role during the fifth season. It’s always a good experience to come back to a role. When I jumped on House of Cards on season four, I was supposed to have five weeks in between Suicide Squad and House of Cards, but since we went over schedule on Suicide Squad, I ended up having five days in between. I really had to just jump in so when I came back I felt like I settled in. It’s the same thing you get at the end of a film; often you really know the character. That’s what’s nice with doing TV you get the chance to revisit and to let it marinate. [For] Will’s arc in this round, we go much deeper with him. You get to go to his dark place. In season four, it’s more of portraying this worthy opponent [to Frank] in a way. In here, it’s actually more fun to play a character that’s unraveling and we get to peel the layers off and see what’s under the facade.

It’s also interesting with this kind of character that is so polished and that is so much playing a role in his own life and when his narrative isn’t playing out the way he wants, then everything starts to crumble.

Going into season five, how early on did you know how his story would end?

[Showrunners] Melissa [James Gibson] and Frank [Pugliese] told me straight-up way before we started shooting how they envisioned the arc of the character. I thought it was a great idea. It was fun for me and Dominique [McElligott]. They [are] this perfect couple and have this perfect facade where you feel that the image that they are showing to the world. People that are too keen on showing how perfect they are they usually aren’t that perfect and it was really fun for us together to get to play that unraveling. You get to see that actually [Hannah] might have been the more genuine and sincere person and when the game had to be played on such a deep level to be won, she was the one that pulled the plug and [said], “I can’t live like this.” And then they broke.

Frank and Melissa spoke about this season showing the blur between entertainment and politics. How did your character, with his use of social media, the live webcasts, etc., help further that? And why is his story a cautionary one?

Considering where we are now where we have a president that is so flippant with his social media and uses any whim that he gets he will communicate that to the world and conduct the nuclear level diplomacy with his Twitter account we see the dangers of that. (Laughs.) Someone needs to tell that schmuck to stop using his Twitter account to conduct diplomacy with North Korea. He’s going to start a nuclear war because he’s in a bad mood.

You personally wrapped filming before the election was over, but what were the conversations on set while the election was taking place?

We were shooting [during] the conventions. There was awhile there when the “Never Trump” movement was gaining steam and there were Republican fractions that were talking about stopping the delegates from voting for Trump. I thought it was going to be another case of House of Cards predicting the future. There were times where I was wondering maybe we need to go even crazier here because reality is so insane. And everyone who was watching the election was asking themselves, “Is this real life? Is this really happening?” And that feeling hasn’t subsided. It’s still very present. (Laughs.)

Read the full interview over at The Hollywood Reporter.

Joel Kinnaman for Carl Edmond

So sorry for falling behind on the updates! Recently, Joel became a brand ambassador for the watches brand, Carl Edmond, and you can see his feature on the home page of their website. I have added some outtakes into the gallery!

“To me ‘Be bold, be you.’ represents a certain way of living that’s aligned with how I try to live my life. In short, I think the timepieces capture and reflect that particular essence. It was definitely something that intrigued me. Along with the design that breathes that same attitude. I’ve always worn watches. I love them. I mean they’re practical for obvious reasons but wearing a watch that looks and feels a certain way makes me reflect over the concept of time and how best to spend it. I think there are watches that say something about you; and watches that you can say something about.”

“Personalities and characters I encounter fascinate me. It’s my way of staying interested in my personal growth and exploring what it means to live life to the fullest, this is something I try to remind myself of. Being involved with a watch-brand like Carl Edmond feels very intuitive. Every time I put on my Carl Edmond it serves as a reminder to be here, alive ‘in the moment’ and available to life.”

Joel Kinnaman for Men’s Health Magazine

Swedish actor Joel Kinnaman got jacked for the new Netflix show Altered Carbon. But his life nearly went in a drastically different direction.

Joel Kinnaman could’ve been a soldier. The Swedish military wanted him. Kinnaman, 38, grew up back in the days when all men in Sweden had to at least try out, and he was planning to tank on purpose. But, he recalls, “when we got out there, we had all these tests—conditioning tests, strength tests, leadership tests. My competitive spirit kicked in and completely removed any pacifistic tendencies.” He crushed the tests, got assigned to an 18-month tour of the north—way up by the Arctic Circle—and thought to himself: Fuck. What did I just do?

In the end, he wound up skipping the service. He tended bar for a while in Norway (not exactly a career) and then decided to give acting a shot. “I was a wild kid and had a lot of friends who were going in the wrong direction really fast,” Kinnaman says. “I didn’t graduate from high school because I was there only 40 percent of the time. So I didn’t have that many things that were pointing any good direction, and acting was the first thing I felt I might actually be good at.”

Kinnaman landed roles in a couple of small Swedish films, and then one in his homeland’s ultimate crossover entertainment product—The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo. After that came Suicide SquadHouse of Cards, and now his dystopian Netflix series. “Altered Carbon takes place 300 years in the future,” Kinnaman says. “We now have the technology to download the human consciousness into a chip that is fixed in the back of your neck—and that has led to bodies being interchangeable.” So interchangeable, in fact, that bodies are known simply as “sleeves.”

Kinnaman plays a kind of superwarrior trying to solve a murder (and committing a few himself along the way) in a jacked-up sleeve that’s intimidatingly huge—but not as huge as he’d like, if he had his choice in real life. “I’d take The Rock’s sleeve any day,” he says. “That would be fun—to be the biggest guy in the room.”

AOL Build Series: ‘Altered Carbon’

Joel stopped the Build Series NYC studios yesterday to promote Altered Carbon. In the interview, he delved deeper into what the show is about, and also discussed the filming process and the sets that were created for the show. They also talked about Viola Davis getting him into character during the Suicide Squad filming days, Joel being an action star, the several combat training he did to prepare for the show, and he also answered questions from the audience. Check out the full interview below and screen captures in our gallery, along with photos of Joel arriving at and inside the studios!


Interview: Joel Kinnaman Talks ‘Altered Carbon’ and ‘Hanna’

After the reports saying that Joel is done with Altered Carbon, he spoke with The Hollywood Reporter and clarified that nothing is official yet.

For his part, Kinnaman acknowledges that he approached Kovacs with the understanding that his time as the character wouldn’t last beyond a single season, but offers an asterisk: “I don’t know what’s going to happen. No one does, really. Season two hasn’t been picked up yet, so who knows?”

“If it was a cool story, for sure,” he added when asked if he would want to continue on as Takeshi Kovacs. “I loved making this show. I had a great experience. The feedback has been fantastic. But I have no idea what’s going on with the second season.”

Hanna’s production is expected to run until July 12, 2018. There has to be room for more Altered Carbon after that, right? Here’s the full interview with THR:

In approaching the complicated world of Altered Carbon, what was your entry point into the show’s universe and the character of Kovacs, specifically?

There’s a lot of sci-fi stuff to wrap your head around, but when you’re preparing for the character, you have to strip all of that away. You have to peel the layers of the onion until you get down to the real heart of the character. It’s a person that is constantly dealing with loss and has made himself numb to that feeling, and therefore doesn’t care about anyone. He won’t allow himself to feel things for other people. Throughout his whole life, everyone who has ever mattered to him has been taken away from him. That’s the problem for Kovacs, in this period of his life. He’s confronted with a situation where he once again has nobody in his life who matters. Everyone he loves is dead. All of the sudden, these new people he’s using for his own gain start meaning something to him. That’s something he wants to avoid at all costs. I tried to dig down into that. 

There’s not so much you can do with him being an Envoy and part of the rebellion. It was more about boiling down to his human qualities. He’s a man who was never allowed to be a boy. To me, that means he’ll always be a boy in some way. He’s someone who has raised himself. He’s done a lot of things that are very awful. It’s someone who carries a lot of self-loathing. To me, when I play a person who is often sarcastic and doesn’t want to engage in the world, and doesn’t want to show any emotion, or doesn’t want to show people that he feels anything…to me, those are markers that this is a person who has actually been really hurt, and is trying to keep those emotions away.

Was your approach to playing Kovacs markedly different from how you would normally approach a character, since you’re playing just the latest in a long line of bodies for Takeshi Kovacs? How did you tackle the physicality?

It was a tricky thing. Usually the way I work is I often work on the physical body language, the tension. That’s usually where my imagination takes me when I start building a character. I start by thinking, is this a confident person? Where in the body is the tension of this person? If the tension is in the shoulders, does it make the head come forward? Maybe he looks at other people like this, a little bit hunched over from the side, so he’s actually a little shy, but he’s also aggressive. All of that, the physical life, starts to feed into the emotional life. Here, there’s so many layers to that, that it was almost hard to decipher. You’re someone with a physical inclination about how you normally feel in a body, and then all of the sudden you’re put into another body. That body has physical memories that are affecting you. It suddenly becomes very freeing. You’re freed up to do pretty much whatever you want. I saw him as a person who carried a lot of sadness, but was also very physically able. I made him a little hunched over, but at the same time, strong. I looked at a lot of big cats.

Good call. Kovacs is definitely a cat person more than a dog person.

For sure. (Laughs.) I was looking at a lot of lions and tigers. They’re very relaxed. If you look at them, they almost look a little sad. Almost like they don’t care about anything. It’s very powerful. When something happens and they need to be active, they react very quickly and can be very dangerous. That’s how I was looking at it.

Did you collaborate with Will Yun Lee on creating Kovacs, since he’s playing his original sleeve?

Will came in right at the tail end [of production]. He was prepping to get ready to shoot right as I was wrapping up. They showed him footage of what we had shot. He asked if there were any physical mannerisms I was doing that he could pick up on. We found a couple of things that he could do, so we could create a common thread. He did an amazing job. A really great performance.

You trained hard for the action scenes, learning martial arts, for instance. How much has that training stuck with you since walking away from the role?

It was one of the big gifts that came with this project and this job: digging into the action part of it, and the martial arts. It’s become a big part of my life now. It became part of something I was already doing, in a sense. I’ve realized I’m always happiest in life when I’m working on a role, because then your whole life is seen through this filter, through the curiosity of a new role, and trying to get as much information about a role as you can — always learning new things. When I didn’t have a role to work on, when I was in between jobs, I would feel like I had much less purpose. I would feel a little empty in a way. Now, after finding martial arts…it’s something I had found even before that, really, that I should always be learning something new. Different hobbies. The process makes me feel good. Now, martial arts has just been the perfect thing. I’ve been training a lot since I shot Altered Carbon. It’s remained a part of my life since then.

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Joel Kinnaman & Mireille Enos on Putting Their ‘Killing’ Relationship Behind Them in Amazon’s ‘Hanna’

Joel and Mireille spoke with Collider during a set visit in Budapest, Hungary, wherein they discussed their characters’ relationship in Hanna and how it differs from what fans are used to in The Killing. Here’s a snippet:

“I think some people are gonna be a little disappointed, you know, because I know that there are a lot of people that really loved our relationship on The Killing and are very excited to see us play again,” Kinnaman told a small group of press. “I think there’s going to be an automatic longing to sort of see a similar kind of dynamic but there’s not going to be any of that. It’s very different.”

Enos echoed Kinnaman’s sentiments. “There’s no crossover, there’s none,” she said, plainly and simply. “There, we were partners with, like, a completely non-kind of romantic relationship. So we had each other’s back and we were not interested in making out. And here, we are enemies with, potentially, a history. So it’s like the polar opposite which has been fun!”

While the relationship that plays out between the two in Hanna is vastly different — Kinnaman plays Erik, Hanna’s vengeful father and former employee of Enos’ Marissa, who, for all intents and purposes, is the villain of the series — the actors were quick to acknowledge the natural chemistry that came with working together again … even if Erik’s goal is, according to Kinnaman, “securing the future and safety of Hanna.” How can he accomplish this task? “Marissa has to go down,” the actor explained.

For the duo, playing this different antagonistic dynamic has been a breath of fresh air and thoroughly enjoyable. “I wondered going in, what’s it going to be like to play this different dynamic with him because there are scenes where we end up talking about the past and stuff,” Enos revealed. “It was so fun. It’s just like a dance.”

This dance partner analogy is something actors are familiar with. When in a scene, you’re only as good as the partner you’re working with, which shows that even if the characters being played are on opposite sides, this sort of behind-the-scenes teamwork is essential. With that said, Kinnaman thoroughly agreed with Enos’ assessment, going so far as to use the same exact analogy.

Mar 05

Joel Kinnaman & Mireille Enos for Los Angeles Times

Joel and Mireille recently sat down with Los Angeles Times to discuss Hanna. They talked about a lot of interesting things, including how the dynamic differs from what we were used to with The Killing, their characters, and the best of all, how they got cast! You can read the full article at the Los Angeles Times website, but here’s are some snippets:

“It’s super wonderful to be back working with each other,” Enos says at Amazon’s Culver City headquarters, where she and Kinnaman have come together to discuss the series. Kinnaman smiles and nods in agreement.
Playing adversaries instead of partners marks a dramatic shift for the two actors — one they have excitedly embraced.

“It was a little trippy the first day we had shooting because the dynamic could not be more different,” Kinnaman says. “But after a couple of takes, it just flowed. We really work well together, and we pick up on little things each other does. I go this way a little bit, and she goes right there. It’s a little dance. It makes it so easy and fun.”

They both welcome the change in dynamics for “Hanna.”

“If we were playing two pals,” Enos says, “I don’t know if we could have done it.”

“I liked that it was so polar opposite,” Kinnaman adds. “Because we had such a good and long relationship on ‘The Killing,’ it was very important to both of us. ‘The Killing’ is one of those things that kinda stuck with people. There’s a danger of going back to the well.”

Enos was the first to be approached by Farr for the series. “We met at a spa hotel where she was shooting in England,” he says, “and I thought she would be perfect for the re-invention of the character.”

Enos says she was asked who she felt might be a good choice to play Erik. “In my mind, the character was a little older than Joel, so I told them to send me some of their favorite names of people in their mid-40s, ex-military.

“They got back to me and said, ‘Actually we were thinking of talking to Joel and wanted to see how you felt about that. I said, ‘Favorite human! On the planet!’ ”

Looking fondly at Enos, Kinnaman says, “Mireille basically cast me.”

Joel Kinnaman for Men’s Journal

MEN’S JOURNAL – In person, Kinnaman actually has plenty to say—at least when not demolishing crawfish. He’s an engaging and funny storyteller, though it helps, obviously, that he’s got a good story to tell. There are many paths to stardom, but not many as picaresque as Kinnaman’s.

We begin before his birth, at a wedding in Laos while the Vietnam War slogs on nearby. Steve Kinnaman, Joel’s father, is an American GI stationed in Bangkok. He has snuck away on a three-day pass to witness the marriage of a friend to a woman who is half-Laotian, half-Vietnamese. It is his first contact with the people his government has been fighting, and the love-filled ceremony confirms some of the niggling doubts he has already been starting to feel about the war. When he returns to base, to the news that his unit is about to be deployed, he decides to go in a different direction. Steve burns his passport, hitchhikes north, and lives on the run in Laos for five years, centered at the Blind Eye, a Vientiane bar that plays host to a Casablanca-like cast of hippies, journalists, drug dealers, CIA agents, and other assorted expats.

It would all make an incredible movie, and in fact Kinnaman and his father, now 74, have been discussing making one. “I’ve been toying with the idea of playing my father,” Kinnaman says. “But I’m getting a little too old, so I might just direct. It’s really a young man’s story.” The tale is still emotionally fraught in the family, too. Steve neglected to tell his family back home where he had gone until two years after eventually fleeing to Sweden, which offered asylum to deserters from the war. The wound lingers still—which is another motivation for maybe making a film, Kinnaman says.

“I see it as a sort of reconciliation project, too,” he says. “Even though I don’t live there”—he moved to Los Angeles 10 years ago—“everything I do is to create a base of both economic security for my family and also arenas where they can all come together.”

Each of Kinnaman’s arms is covered with elaborate set-piece tattoos. On the left is a chiaroscuro of women’s faces, flowers, and vines. It is, he explains, a cover-up of an older piece of ink. “I walked into a parlor in the 1990s and literally thought this exact sentence: ‘Obviously I’m getting a tribal tattoo because they are definitely never going out of style,’” he says, wryly.

A similar spirit of jovial self-mockery is evident on his other biceps, where the last line from The Tempest, written in Swedish, has been crossed out and replaced. “It was supposed to say sleep but it said dream,” he shrugs. Beneath the corrected quote is a stylized tableau of Sodermalm, the Stockholm neighborhood where Steve Kinnaman ended up after decamping to Sweden and where the younger Kinnaman was raised. Now one of the city’s most gentrified districts, it was, in those days, a working class neighborhood and bohemian stronghold. Family life there was complicated and colorful. Kinnaman sat in the middle of five sisters from various mothers, often moving around from house to house. “My family’s a mess,” he says. “But it’s a beautiful mess.”

He describes it as a happy childhood, but nevertheless, from an early age, he was attracted to more dangerous company. By 10, he was hanging out with a rough group of friends, robbing people, stealing cars, dealing low-level drugs, and engaging in the ritualized group violence of soccer hooliganism, in which bands of supporters of opposing teams would meet in hand-to hand combat on the streets. “It was an incredible, powerful group dynamic,” he says. “Being in a group and just rushing toward another group.”

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Joel on ‘The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon’

For the second time this year, Joel appeared on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon, this time for the promotion of For All Mankind as it nears its series premiere. He also talked about the “accidental” Instagram video and meeting Barack Obama. Check out the interview below, along with photos and screencaps in our gallery!

Interview: Joel Kinnaman on ‘The Informer’

The Informer is finally out in VOD! Check out this interview of Collider with Joel, wherein he discussed the film and where would Stephen Holder might be now.

COLLIDER: The twists and turns in this movie really surprised me.
JOEL KINNAMAN: Glad to hear it. We love this movie. I was so stoked when we got it and with the cast that we were able to put together, so it was really frustrating when the American distribution went bankrupt and it’s been in limbo for awhile. I can’t wait for it to finally reach American audiences.

When something like that happens, how hard is it to deal with when it’s totally out of your control and there’s nothing you can do about it other than wait?
KINNAMAN: It’s a bummer. Of course, you focus on other things but it’s frustrating, especially since we had an international release of this and it got really well-received and did great in a bunch of European countries where it got released, so I was dying for it to come out here but it just sat on the shelf for a while. Fortunately, it got snagged out of its limbo and now people are gonna be able to see it. It’s actually a great time for it to come out because it’s out in a drought of quality new content

When this came your way, what was it that made you want to do it?
KINNAMAN: It was a combination of things. First of all, I thought the story was great. I loved the undercover aspect of it. And then, I just thought the character was super compelling. It’s a man put in a really difficult situation and he’s literally fighting his way back to his family. I thought the character had a lot of layers and nuance, and he’s a real soft, vulnerable family guy. At the same time, he’s put in this situation and he has training from the military, so it makes him effective. His emotional pendulum swings from pretty big extremes. And then, we were able to get such a great cast on board with this film – Rosamund Pike, Clive Owen, Ana de Armas, and Common.

Then, I thought Andrea [Di Stefano] was a great director. I’d actually read this script a couple of years earlier, in a different iteration when it felt a little bit more like a programmer, and then Andrea really gave the characters more nuance. He shifted some of the more sticky parts of the script and made it more believable. While we were shooting it, he put a lot of emphasis on making it feel realistic. He did a lot of research. We had high-level FBI consultants that supported the way that the FBI business was conducted in the film, and it was the same thing for how the prisons work. We’re not the first film that shows it but you get to see the merit of the modern American prison system that’s overpopulated, where people don’t even have their own cells and they’re in dorms with bunk beds, and the level of insecurity that the inmates are under is portrayed in our film. So, there were a lot of really good elements to this. And of course, in the middle of it was this really white knuckle, hard-boiled action thrill that had a great pace. I thought it was a great opportunity.

Did you have any idea that this had also been based on a Swedish novel (Tre Sekunder by Roslund & Hellström)?
KINNAMAN: I found that out but I was actually already attached to it and had already met with. When I jumped in, I was like, “Okay, so let’s read the novel that it’s based on.” And then, I realized that it’s a Swedish novel and a Swedish character. That actually was a circumstance that I wasn’t aware of. A lot of people thought that that’s why I got attached to it but it wasn’t that, at all. It was pretty cool.

This guy is a family man who seems to be willing to do whatever it takes to protect his family. What was it like to form that family bond, not just with Ana de Armas but also with the young actress that plays your daughter?
KINNAMAN: She was fantastic. They did such a great job of casting. She was actually British but she just nailed this American accent. Some kids just have an ear for it and they’re able to do it much quicker than adults. Ana brought so much to it, as well. I hadn’t seen her do much before we played together but I realized really quickly that she was gonna be a real player. She’s super talented and just has an incredible temperament and ability. Also, her Latina background gave her a sense of how family is everything. I think that really resonated for her. You can tell in how strongly she felt about that.

What are some of your personal favorite crime movies or prison movies, and did you take any specific inspiration from an of them?
KINNAMAN: The Profit is probably my favorite prison movie. There’s a Danish movie called R that’s also incredible. That actually came out the same year as The Prophet and it didn’t get so much attention because they had a lot of similarities. Of course, The Shawshank Redemption is the Hollywood fluff version of it but is still one of the greatest movies of all time. I love that movie.

That’s certainly a movie that makes me cry anytime I see it.
KINNAMAN: Me too, at the end when he walks out onto the beach. I’ve always wanted to do a prison film. It’s something that a lot of people, and men in particular, think about. It’s a fantasy that you have, especially growing up, about what it would be like to end up in prison and how you would fare. It’s one of those nightmare prospects that you have. I always wanted to explore that in a film scenario and not in reality.

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Joel Kinnaman for Sharp Magazine

Joel is Sharp magazine’s final cover star of 2020! The Zoom interview delves a little into the characters that Joel has portrayed over the years. Check it out below, and outtakes in our gallery!

When Joel Kinnaman joins our Zoom call, I’m surprised to see a cloudless sky and shimmering ocean. He tells me that he and his best friend have recently decamped to Chicama, a small coastal town in northwestern Peru, for a holiday after wrapping production of the second season of his Apple TV+ show For All Mankind, which airs in January. “I’m in some kind of surfing paradise, and at the same time being consumed by the election and following that, biting my nails off,” he says, flipping the camera to show me the breathtaking view of the world’s longest wave.

This election represents a pivotal moment in American history. The agonizing process of counting votes in the days leading up to Biden’s win let our imaginations run wild about what the future holds. What does the future of democracy in America look like? How will this election shape the course of history? (Much to Kinnaman’s relief, two days after we speak, Joe Biden is voted president-elect and Kamala Harris, the first Black woman vice president–elect.)

These kinds of “what if” projections about the future are at the core of For All Mankind. The show presents an alternate history of the space race in which the Soviets beat the Americans to the moon. Kinnaman stars as Ed Baldwin, one of NASA’s top astronauts, who led the failed lunar mission, demoralizing NASA but inspiring the Americans to catch up, training women and women of colour — marginalized groups excluded from space exploration at the time — in the process. “The actual space race was kind of a depressing story,” says the Swedish–American actor. “It was like, we went to the moon and that was amazing, and then everyone was hoping and felt we were headed to outer space to continue human exploration, but then it just got dismantled.”

Kinnaman was drawn to the show’s intelligent writing and powerful storytelling. Each season jumps ahead in time, depicting the lasting political and cultural impact of life-changing events. “I thought it was just such a smart way of both telling that story, of leading up to that story, and then where we wanted it to go,” he adds. “It’s a way of telling a historic story with complete creative freedom for where it goes.”

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Joel Kinnaman for GQ Hype

This isn’t a drill, we got a new shoot! Joel’s looking so good (as always) on the cover of the latest issue of GQ Hype. The interview was done through a Zoom call and it’s mostly focused on the upcoming The Suicide Squad. Check out the interview below and outtakes in our gallery!

BRITISH GQ – When Joel Kinnaman answers my Zoom call, he’s walking briskly through the streets of Venice Beach with his dog, Zoe, a rescue mutt from Mexico. He’s wearing a blue baseball cap and a T-shirt adorned with a baby picture of his fiancée, model Kelly Gale, the sleeves of which are just about obscuring a tattoo of the word “Skwad” on his bicep, which was administered on the set of the first Suicide Squad movie by Will Smith with Margot Robbie’s tattoo gun. (He does not regret it. “It’s a good story,” he says.) 

He’s telling me about the play that saved his career. The sole reason he’s here today, promoting a different, better Suicide Squad movie – an unorthodox, quasi-sequel, quasi-reboot of the 2016 DC Comics film about a group of supervillains manipulated into fighting the good fight – is because of an obscure one-man show called Howie The Rookie by Irish writer Mark O’Rowe. 

In his twenties, three years into a degree at Sweden’s most prestigious drama school, he began to experience debilitating stage fright. He would have panic attacks while on stage and vomit or black out before performances. “I thought maybe I don’t have the constitution to do this, maybe I can’t handle this pressure.” He resolved to overcome his problem through a sort of self-made exposure therapy. He would find the most terrifying stage performance for himself and do it over and over again just to prove to himself that he could. Enter, Howie. It was a gruelling, 90-minute piece, in which he would embody 16 different characters. “Everything hinged on this working and there was something in me that just would not let it fail.” He became obsessed with it and performed it over and over again in front of live audiences, slowly chipping away at his anxiety over time. After that, nothing would ever seem quite so daunting. “It became the foundation of a new kind of confidence that I had, or that I built with that.”

In many ways, that baptism of fire prepared him for much greater stresses he would deal with in his career, from playing the emotionally destroyed lead in a four-hour stage adaptation of Crime And Punishment in Gothenburg (his first proper gig out of acting school) to his first role in America in the beloved drama series The Killing and more recently shouldering the hopes of millions of comic book fanboys. Working on massive blockbusters – The Suicide Squad, he tells me, is the most expensive R-rated movie of all time – comes with its own very particular kind of anxiety. When you’re acutely aware that a shoot day costs £220,000, there’s a truly high-stakes need to perform, knowing that if you fudge your line or miss, you’re letting multiples of most people’s average wage slide down the drain. It can get a little tense. “There are so many moving parts and I don’t want to be the one that sucks.”

The Suicide Squad represents somewhat of a second chance for Kinnaman. Twenty sixteen’s Suicide Squad was considered a creative failure by most of those involved in its making. This time around, Guardians Of The Galaxy mastermind James Gunn takes over for original director David Ayer. Kinnaman reprises his role as military man and Suicide Squad leader Rick Flag, alongside fellow returnees Margot Robbie (Harley Quinn) and Viola Davis. Idris Elba and  John Cena are subbed in for Will Smith and Jared Leto as co-leads.

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Joel Kinnaman and Margot Robbie for People Magazine

The Suicide Squad is out in theaters and on HBO Max today! Joel and Margot spoke to People Magazine to discuss the movie and their friendship.

The Suicide Squad costars Margot Robbie and Joel Kinnaman have been real-life pals since meeting on 2016’s Suicide Squad. But Sweden-born Kinnaman, 41, says he gained a whole new appreciation for Australian Robbie, 31, while filming their critically-acclaimed R-rated comic book-based movie.

“We had a couple of days when we were shooting these scenes, where we had massive rain towers [raining down on us],” Kinnaman, who plays military tactician Rick Flag in the films, tells PEOPLE. “For some reason these rain towers, [the water] is so cold. It’s so cold! And the rest of us, we get the rain on us, but we also have clothes on. And then we get a warm, cozy coat to put on in between. But because Margot [as Harley Quinn] is in full body paint, she’s just standing there taking it. And then she can’t wrap herself in anything. And you just see her, her whole body is just shivering, her teeth are clattering. And then, as soon as it’s, ‘Action,’ she’s on, and it’s on.

“And then you go back to in between [takes], and she’s shivering and clattering her teeth,” he continues. “She’s a savage. It makes a Swede very proud, someone that enjoys the cold. That’s why she is a little bit of an honorary Swede.”

Robbie jokes that she has a natural affinity for Kinnaman’s home country.

“I think I always gravitate towards Swedish people. I just love the Swedes, so it didn’t take me long to gravitate towards Joel,” she says, adding that she did welcome a warm towel and shower after long days of filming.

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