The Rich Roll Podcast - Leading Man Joel Kinnaman On Authenticity, Facing Fear & Honoring Your Creative Calling

Episode Date: December 18, 2023

Storytelling is our most powerful device to better understand the human condition. The creativity required to craft and share a story well told is both an art and a way of being. Joel Kinnaman is one such being. A star ascendant on screens big and small whose Hollywood career was born with his incendiary turn in 2011's The Killing, kickstarting leading roles in films like The Suicide Squad and RoboCop, and television shows like House of Cards, Hanna, and For All Mankind. The occasion for this conversation is Silent Night. Featuring Joel as a grief-stricken father hell-bent on revenge, it's an absolutely unhinged, John Woo-helmed vigilante actioner with a unique twist: zero dialogue—a conceit that showcases Joel's physicality as a performer. This conversation canvasses Joel's unique path from a wayward youth in Stockholm to one of Hollywood's most in-demand leading men. It's about his creative process, the importance of authenticity, and how his relationship with fear frames the success he enjoys today. Plus: an insane Nicholas Cage story and more. This is a fun hang—I hope you enjoy it. Show notes + MORE Watch on YouTube Newsletter Sign-Up Today’s Sponsors: LMNT: DrinkLMNT.com/RICHROLL AG1: DrinkAg1.com/RICHROLL Faherty: FahertyBrand.com/RICHROLL Timeline: Timeline.com/RICHROLL Squarespace: Squarespace.com/RICHROLL Peace + Plants, Rich

Don't have a plan B. Go all in. There's no other alternative. Please welcome Joel Kinnaman. I'm going to be the president. You're going to flip me those motherfucking controls. Go to me. What have you done to me?

There's your pep talk. Like most people in America, my introduction to you was in The Killing. Yo, Beth. How's it hanging? And then now here you are, like the hardest working man in Hollywood. Like you're all over the place. You have to fall in love with the craft. Finding acting gave me this whole purpose in life.

And then I would start getting panic attacks. I would throw up every time before I went on stage. It's like these fucking demons that are in my head, like these voices that like cripple me, that ruin everything. Like what is the worst thing that they could experience? That's where everything changed. If you have that facility to not shy away from those things,

then you're in this sort of curious growth mindset way of approaching your life, right? This was a very good conversation. Did I find my therapist? in this sort of curious growth mindset way of approaching your life, right? This was a very good conversation. Did I find my therapist? So nice to meet you. Thanks for coming out here, dude. Nice to meet you too, yeah.

I remember, this must've been maybe three or four years ago, I saw a video of you doing some cold plunging with Wim Hof oh yeah and I think that was up at was that up at Jeff Krasnow's place commune up in Topanga Canyon oh okay well yeah because I did it a couple of times we did it at my house once on my rooftop but then I think that you might have seen

yeah yeah yeah because I was invited to that I know Jeff and he was like Wim's here come on up we're gonna hang out. And for some reason I couldn't go. And then I saw those videos, Lewis Howes was there. And I was like, damn man, cause I was really wanting to meet you

and took a couple more years, but here we are. So this is cool, dude. I know that you recently just got back from Jeddah, right? Yeah, just came back from Saudi Arabia. From the Red Sea Film Festival. Red Sea Film Festival, dude. I know that you recently just got back from Jeddah, right? Yeah, just came back from Saudi Arabia. From the Red Sea Film Festival. Red Sea Film Festival, yeah. Out promoting the movie. I was promoting the movie.

I was also in the jury for the film festival there. With Baz Luhrmann. Baz Luhrmann, yeah, epic, epic man. Yeah, what's that guy like in real life? Is he, he just seems like such a genius artist, but also, you but also his presentation is almost a caricature of himself, you know? No, no.

He's like a living embodiment of his movies. I know, but he's always on the move. He's always doing extremely fashionable, like the latest fashion. He's a cool cat. But I really enjoyed spending the time with him and the time that we got to spend in the jury there because we saw some incredible films.

It was actually a really, really good experience being there. It was like, it's a country where, you know, movies and music were illegal six years ago. Six years ago, women couldn't drive. And we were sitting in a movie theater, like an open theater with, you know, it was a hardcore, like, Pakistani feminist movie with, like, a trans lead. And we were in the audience with maybe 30 women that were wearing, like, niqab, you know, where you only see the eyes.

And people were, like, cheering where you only see the eyes. And people were like cheering at the end of the movie. And you're just looking around and it was like- Times are changing. This is cool, yeah. Like a really, really special energy among like young people and, you know, women artists. Yeah, it was a pretty profound experience being there, I gotta say.

I've been to Jeddah. I've been to a couple of places in Saudi Arabia. And there's few places that you can travel to where you're like, wow, like I'm far from home. Like it is different here, you know? I mean, that was a number of years ago. It was probably like 2015, 16, something like that. Oh, yeah. But then it was, you know, that was closed Saudi Arabia.

Very different place now. Yeah. And there's like a thriving, like growing film, like industry there. Because I know, weren't you supposed to do this Neil Blomkamp movie? Yeah, exactly. Like Neom? Yeah, I was supposed to be shooting it right now, actually. Wow.

So it got bumped. I mean, hopefully they'll put it together for next year, but we'll see. The Neom thing is wild. I mean, their whole thing is pretty wild. Also what they're doing, that they're putting so much into education. I mean, that kind of what sets them apart. I mean, I don't want to sound like I'm a part of the Saudi. Yeah, like tourism bureau, like Sp you know, SponCon here.

Yeah, yeah. They have to pay me a lot more for that. No, but it's, you know, they have the population base to really have these, to have a domestic industry that kind of clashes with the outside world that's coming in. And, yeah, it's pretty cool, yeah. So you're here mainly because Silent Night is out. Yeah. This movie is fucking unhinged, dude.

It must have been a trip to shoot that movie. And I think it's, I mean, the movie's great. It like fires on all cylinders. It is, you know, just this sort of straight revenge, vigilante, you know, story about this guy with the special twist of there being like zero dialogue with the great John Woo, who hasn't made a movie in the US in like 20 years, right?

How did that come together? I mean, the invitation to like star in a movie by John Woo must have been a cool experience for you. Yeah, yeah, it definitely was. And then it being paired with, you know, sort of being in some ways like a cinematic experiment, you know, that there's not a single line of dialogue in the movie. you know that there's not a single line of dialogue in the movie um so i wanted to you know take a you know i started out in as a theater actor and sort of in swedish cinema and then i moved over here and and over the course of my career here i've done more and more action or

you know i've done some action and i enjoy that that part of it but i always want to find some action thing that is also paired with like real drama and and you know a real acting challenge so i don't feel like that part of it sort of stagnates and so this you know on its face really had both of those elements to get to work with one of the legendary directors of film and then also having that element of there's no dialogue in it and you have to, it's just a, I mean, it actually, it was one of those things that really taught me to be, taught me new things about my craft. And that's kind of hard to find when you've been doing it

for as long as I have. You would think that not having any dialogue that you would have to internalize and memorize would make it easier, but it's actually the opposite, right? Like you have to be super aware of all of your like sort of micro expressions and everything because you can't fall back

or rely upon words to convey anything. But it's also, I know i i realized that you know sometimes you use your voice to to sort of get away with maybe not having quite the emotional charge that you need for a scene you know you know and it's like and you kind of bullshit your way through it and you see the the you see that expressed best in like American TV, you know, like shitty TV. I call it American whisper acting where it's like, how could you do this to me, man?

You know, how could you? And it's sort of like what actors do. And you know, I've been guilty of that as well, where you sort of, you put an effect in your voice to make it sound more emotional, but you don't really have that emotional charge there. And when you tell the story with no dialogue and you have to do that, but you don't really have that emotional charge there. And when you tell the story with no dialogue and you have to do that,

but it's just your eyes and your face, it just becomes flat if you don't have that. So I realized that the process of spinning up my emotion and the inner dialogue and the pace of my thoughts had to be much, much more higher and intense where it had to be the sort of pure for the expression in the face and the eyes to come out and tell the story. Because I didn't have that crutch of a fake voice. Did you recognize that in the process of doing it? Or did you have that awareness like going in that you were gonna have to deliver on that level

in order to convey some level of authenticity? No, it was like day one where I was like, oh shit. I really gotta work here. Yeah, I'm not gonna get away with anything. But you went into it with a sort of plan to go full method on the whole thing, right? And not talk at all and that kind of fell apart. Yeah, it did fall apart pretty quickly.

Yeah, it was sort of a funny story with me and my fiance. I was like prepping her. I told the story on Fallon. I was like, I was prepping her, you know, like I think I'm gonna go like full method on this. It's an opportunity to really like go in deep. And, you know, because i've been i i play i play around with that kind of concentration not not like the idea

of method where you're in character the whole time and you sort of force the whole crew to call you like mr president like i've never done that but to sort of stay in the concentration of the character for the duration of the shoot. And it's more to just kind of spend time in the physicality and the voice of the character. You get more practice of it. I have done that sort of for some projects and it has its pros and its cons. So I was like, I think this one,

I'm gonna go like even deeper. I'm just gonna be, you know, silent for the whole shoot to just like really harness that energy. And I was like, and that means that, you know, I'm gonna do it for the whole shoot, you know? So I'm not gonna be able to talk to you. We're not gonna talk on the phone. And she's like, what the fuck are you talking about?

You're not gonna talk to me? You mean you're not gonna call me for two months? I'm like, yeah, I am an artist. This is what I do. And we had our talk with our relationship coach, Mark. Everyone needs a Mark. And so I had her all prepped up and she was like, okay, I want to be there for you and for your process.

And, you know, this is going to be really tough for our relationship, but let's do this. And then, like, I didn't even last, like, I landed in Mexico City and, like, called her before I went through immigration. This will start when I get to set. Yeah, exactly. And then, whatever. Yeah. Yeah. this will start when I get to set yeah exactly and then whatever but it's also like the real of the story is I also very

early realized that if I step back and and have like sort of a singular process where I'm only focused on my performance I was quickly convinced that the movie singular process where I'm only focused on my performance, I was quickly convinced that the movie would suffer from that.

Because especially when you have a role where the narrative of the film is the character arc, you're so integral in the whole storytelling apparatus. And there's so much that you can add. And also know film is a collaborative process and and if you have a singular process like that you're gonna cut out all the other artists that are on set uh all the other artists that are behind the scenes that are also there and ready to sort of contribute with their art to make this collective art piece and and then you just make it about yourself and um so it's it's a it's it's a it's a loss in that

sense you know you lose a lot and and i realized that like no i need to really be a leader on on this set well you're a producer on the movie also right yeah that's not so important for this um but but but yeah but but it's also you know that john is sort of he's like a quiet reserved you know like he he speaks with a very low voice and um so then there becomes other you know voices that are strong it can be like the first uh the first assistant director that sort of runs the show. And overall, the tone of the set can shift and become something else. And that tone can seep into the film as well. So for me to like kind of step out of it, then I can't add my...

For me, it's really important like to create a good vibe on set and to have as many people sort of feeling creative as possible. Well, when you're the lead, you set the tone for everybody, right? And if you're brooding in the corner and not talking to anyone, like what does that do to the, like, you know,

the esprit de corps of everybody else? And then also, if you want to get feedback from Wu on your performance, you're going to have to talk to the guy. I know. It was the dumbest talk to the guy. It was the dumbest idea to be quiet.

I don't know why. I'm glad I came to my senses really quick. It would have been an absolute disaster. There's a lot of like sort of shared DNA with this movie with like, you know, the Wick series. Look, there's no Wick without Wu. Like John Wu, you know, sets the stage and the template for everything that we love about John Wick. But in that kind of shared sensibility,

these fight sequences are like really grounded in reality. You're not a superhero. Like you're actually fighting. The choreography feels realistic. It doesn't feel, maybe it's heightened a little bit, but it doesn't feel like it's not something that wouldn't actually happen because you're not intended to be, you know, any kind of superhuman person. You're just an average dude doing it.

But the training had to be intense. I mean, you get this great montage and you get, you know, like the whole, the whole, the whole Rocky thing. And like, you know, and you're a super fit guy, but like, what was that like getting ready to like, you know, be able to show up with your shirt off like that? Yeah, no, the key is you take all the steroids and then you do three pushups every morning, you know,

but really strong pushups. Lots of videos. Is Joel Natty or not? Like, you know, every time there's something, there's videos that are like, what's the protocol? What's the reality of like the Hollywood trainer culture? Yeah, I mean, you definitely, you know, vitamin T. And then...

Okay, you heard it here. No, I mean, I've sort of figured out how how i like to train and when you've done it a couple of times it's sort of it's kind of becomes kind of silly the whole sort of shirtless scene you know i feel silly you know putting so much butter on yeah exactly um but you know for this, it's important to show the transformation because he is this sort of – but in reality, nobody would look like that from training in your garage because that's mostly diet and vitamin T. but yeah it's um you know when you've done it a few times i know how to just you know kind of train and eat um you look like that for like 24 hours exactly exactly that that's what it is um and um but then when it comes to all the stunt training and that work, that's sort of an accumulation of skills, I guess, because I've done a few action movies over the course of the years and I ended up working with the same people a lot.

So because we've been working for several years for this one and this was sort of when my producer side sort of came into it, I was able to, you know, bring this whole sort of stunt team into this and the fight team at least. or martial artist or didn't have any skills, the way that we wanted to make it exciting was to make the fights really frenetic and messy. And so me and Jeremy, Jeremy Marinas, who was the fight coordinator on this, who was also fight coordinator on the Wick movies, and he's going to be a great action director in his own right,

we had this idea that we were going to create the fights and we really didn't want it to look choreographed. And the way that we wanted to get away from that was to create these sort of anchor points of choreography where a couple of moves, this gets slammed up against the wall. But then, you know,

then he gets loose and gets all the way over there. And then the way that we get there is sort of improvised and it is frenetic. And the hard thing that can be with doing that is that most stunt performers,

they're trained to be very careful with the actor and that's where it can look a little soft and uh so i like brazilian jiu-jitsu is one of my like passions in life uh so i would train a lot with the with the guys i was uh you know working with and we would do some some Muay Thai sparring as well. So we became really comfortable with training with each other. So when it came to the more improvised parts of the fights, we were sort of comfortable with each other

to sort of turn up the intensity in those moments. And you have these scenes where I was working with this guy, Vinny, we did this fight sequence in the script script it's like the suited man it's the guy that i take captor and yeah take captive in the beginning and we have it we had we had a really cool fight scene in that but but you know it was one scene where he was like you know like pushing my face up and and i and i looked at the the monitor i was like vinnie look like your your your your your fingertips are not like they're they're sparing my face you know you can see it like you gotta like you gotta dig so it was a lot of me sort of pushing the stunt guys to like not go easy on me um yeah but if you're grappling with them then they know where that edge is

how far they can push you because i, because I took many unconscious on vacation. And then on top of that, there's all the driving stuff. So you're doing, it looks like it's you in the car doing all that. Not all of it. All the drifting and all that kind of stuff? Yeah, they taught me how to drift um

and so i can do some shit but uh but then i had you know jeff who was my my driving double who's like a wizard on the wheel he was doing uh you know some of the wider shots and and uh um yeah so there's a combination you know there's there's a what I can do but I was doing quite a bit I I have some funny videos where where you know

because we were practicing for a long time and so yeah we put John in the car once while we were rehearsing and

we thought it would be funny and I drove John around and just spinning out with him so I did I started drifting a little bit and he was like and we thought it would be funny. And I drove John around and- Just spinning out with him. I did, I started drifting a little bit and he was like, okay, good, go back. He was like, not fun.

He didn't like that at all. On the day to day, like jujitsu is your jam. Like what's the like like, wellness, fitness routine just on a normal day when you're not prepping for a movie? What does that look like? Well, for me, it depends. You know, there's sort of one routine that I have when it's just me living life,

and then it's one routine when I'm sort of gearing up for something. And usually it depends on how I want the character to look like um uh you know for example when I was sort of preparing for Sympathy for the Devil with with Nick Cage and then and then right after that I was preparing for the fourth season of for all mankind i was uh for for four seasons of for all mankind i'm playing 72 years old so i had this idea that i need to lose a lot of weight um so my goal was to lose 35 pounds um it's just the the sort of the neck and the shoulders know, just that's what kind of goes on older men. Yeah.

And I was going to wear this sort of like, you know, fake belly on that one. But I just did, I wanted to get the top part of my, you know, from my sort of the ribs and up to just look skinnier. So I wanted to lose weight for that. look skinnier um so i wanted to lose weight for that and then and then the character in in sympathy for the devil i was you know nick was sort of holding me hostage there and uh the skinnier smaller i got i think the better it was for the dynamic um you know if you felt like that we were at least sort of similar size it was because i'm thinking i'm a little bit bigger than nick so you know the the smaller i got the better it would be for the dynamic of the film like that we were at least sort of similar size. It was, because I'm thinking I'm a little bit bigger than Nick. So, you know, the smaller I got,

the better it would be for the dynamic of the film. So there I was on a mission to like lose weight. But I'm trying to do it, but still be able to train just for my mental health. Yeah. So then I'll just be training jiu-jitsu because nothing makes me lose weight more than if I just train jiu-jitsu.

If I just train jiu-jitsu and do nothing else, then I lose weight. So if I want to maintain weight, then I got to lift weights and train jiu-jitsu. But you're not doing any crazy fasting. Yeah, no, I was. Yeah. So you were able to lose that much weight 35 pounds

yeah I was I was fasting 18 to 20 hours wow yeah for almost 8 months it was yeah

and then you go into For All Mankind and you're sitting in the makeup chair for hours making you look like an old man yeah

and then I felt like it didn't do as much as I wanted it to do. All that effort? Yeah. It was like I saw it. It did give a difference, but yeah, I was down to 166, and I'm usually like 195. Wow.

And you're like 63, right? Yeah, that's pretty good. So I'm usually like between 195 and 200. That's what I wear. I haven't seen the Nick Cage movie yet. I saw the trailer for it. And for some reason it escaped me. Like I'm like, when did this come out?

Did it come out this summer? Yeah, it was one of those unfortunate things that happened with the strike. So they'd set a release date and we were supposed to do press. We had the press day set and then the strike got announced. And there was an opportunity to do the press right before the strike kicked in, like literally like two hours before the strike kicked in. And then Nick felt that it was not being solid there,

you know, not showing solidarity to it. I was very open to doing the interviews. I mean, the strike hadn't started yet. We had two hours. Like I'm very pragmatic with those kinds of things. But yeah, so we didn't, we did no press for it. Yeah, I heard nothing about it. And then, and it kind of just got released into the void.

I'm going to watch it now though, because it looks pretty wild. It's cool. Like it's a tiny movie, but it's basically me and Cage in a car. I got to experience a lot of Cage rage, you know, directly at my face. I can't decide whether that guy is a lunatic

or a genius or both, but there's a pretty strong argument that he's the greatest living movie star that we have. I mean, that guy is like unique in every way. Like, what is he like? What is that like working with him in person? It's like just as advertised, you know? Like the first day that we rehearse,

you know, we go to his house, me and Yuval, the director, and knock on his door. This is his house in Vegas. And he opens up. Is that where he lives? He lives in Vegas? In Vegas, yeah. And he opens the door, and he's like, hi. And I'm like, hey.

And he's got pink hair. And then he's like, fuck. I'm like, what? He's like, my cat. My cat ran away. It's my wild cat. It's the third time he does it. And I'm like, oh, okay. And he's like, my cat, my cat ran away. It's my wild cat. It's the third time he does it. And I'm like, oh, okay.

And he's like, come in. And then we walk in and his house is like, it's a little gothic. And in the living room, he's got his big bird cage. And he's like, here's Hoagie, Hoagie, Hoagie. And he starts yelling at his bird. I'm like, shit, this is so good. He's like, that's Milesagie. Hoagie! Hoagie! And he starts yelling at his bird. I'm like, shit, this is so good. He's like, that's Miles. He's my reptile manager.

I'm like, okay. What's up, Miles? And then we go down in the basement, and then we start rehearsing. And on the first day of rehearsal, he's completely off book on the entire script. He's on his feet rehearsing like full paddy. And, you know, we're like 10 days away from shooting a movie and he's he has the whole script memorized and just really

has a very clear idea of what he's doing with this character and it's like a wild you know so it's a wild take on the character and um and it's uh i got to i got to give him an award and when i was in saudi they they gave him some sort of appreciation award and and i had this sort of speech written that i handed in to the producers where i was talking about his acting balls but uh apparently they didn't want that on sa TVs, had to cut that line. But I was like, we talk about acting balls and Nick's acting balls are like fucking watermelons. Because it's like, you know, he never plays it safe.

You know, he- Yeah. He goes for it every time and it doesn't matter what movie it is. He's like balls to the wall. Yeah. 100%. And it's like the kind of,

like he always has such a fascinating, like his choices are always so extreme, you know? And it, you know, it's risky. It means you can miss, of course, you know, there's a bigger likelihood that you can miss, but also that's when you, that's how you create the most memorable characters that have ever been made. And, and, you know, where it's pure genius. And I like, ah, that's not my approach. I, I'm, I try to find a more, you know, subtle way to, to tell, I tried to sort of meld the character with something something of my

own you know i create a new body language and way of talking and stuff like that but um but it's a sort of a more subtle way i i tried to you know find the the most subtle way to tell the story and he's not interested in naturalism and and he that. So I was so fascinated to work with him. I was actually chasing a project to do with him because I really wanted the experience to see how he works and like just as advertised. Yeah, but he has his own internal logic for all of those choices.

Like when pressed or asked, he can tell you exactly why he's doing what he's doing, as extreme as it may be but i'm just envisioning you like you know in the car with him or whatever take and he's throwing something insane at you and you've got to figure out how to you know not react yeah in real in real time to some unexpected thing that's like so many crazy things he did so many crazy things while we were shooting that movie it was he had these like improvisations that was like

officer now I have to watch it is it streaming where can you see this yeah I think I think it's on Hulu

I think it might be on Hulu he is the best I love Nick so much and I'm so happy that he exists. I mean, I was pinching myself many times. He made it impossible to act sometimes, you know,

because he would just go into these really absurd improvisations of him like, you know, yeah. He was like jerking off his like massive imaginary dick while the police had just pulled him off. He was like, officer, officer. He was like doing this. Oh my God. This is impossible to have in a movie. And I think a lot of the things he was doing kind of to entertain himself as well.

But, yeah, he's a genius. Yeah. We're brought to you today by recovery.com. I've been in recovery for a long time. It's not hyperbolic to say that I owe everything good in my life to sobriety. And it all began with treatment, an experience that I had that quite literally saved my life. And in the many years since, I've in turn helped many suffering addicts and their loved ones find treatment. And with that, I know all too well just how confusing and how overwhelming and how challenging it can be to find the right place and the right level of care, especially because, unfortunately, not all treatment resources adhere

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about how you inhabit a role. I mean, I think like most people in America, my introduction to you was in The Killing. That was your first truly American kind of introduction. No, that was my first job in the US. It wasn't. No, it was. Yeah, that's what I thought, right? That's what brought you here from Sweden. No, I'd already come here.

I came here to sort of to try it out. And then I was, you know, doing auditions. So you were already living here when you got that. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, you had done that, what was the other movie that you did that kind of came out right around the same time, the Weinstein Company movie?

It was a Swedish movie. You got like a best actor. Yeah, Snobby Cash, Easy Money. Yeah. But that was a Swedish movie. Yeah, yeah. So I was working in Sweden, and then I moved, easy money. Yeah. Yeah, but that was a Swedish movie. Yeah, yeah. No, so I was working in Sweden and then I moved to the States.

Right. And then I was doing auditions and- You did a shitload of stuff in Sweden before the killing. I mean, your IMDB is like 10 miles long of all the Swedish stuff that you did before you came here. I had an intense career in Sweden.

I finished acting school in 2007, and I was on stage for a couple of years in the National Theater. And then at the same time, I did nine features in 16 months. Wow. And I played the lead in six of them. So it was like a very intense,

and then I moved to the States. And the killing was sort of the first, sort of the introduction to an American audience of like this Scandi noir like genre that now we can all enjoy on Netflix. Like I just, I love watching all the, all these like crime noirs that are all, all from that part of the world.

So dark and, you know, not interested in happy endings. Not at all. Yeah, and the killing, you know, was definitely that, but your character was almost on some level, like comedic relief, like the choices that you were making about that guy. It was really riveting. Like you made an indelible impression.

You're like, who is that dude? And then now here you are, like the hardest working man in Hollywood, you're all over the place. But that must've been, the reception to that must've been pretty cool at the time because that show was a big deal when it aired. Yeah, but it was a weird show because it was um

you know it's such a long time ago now um and the sort of tv space was so different than it was like right in the beginning still of the sort of golden era yeah of tv where audiences were audiences were still sort of steeped in an older tradition and had expectations that were different. Because the season finale of the first season of that show created an outrage. And people were furious. I don't remember that. And abandoned the show,

because it was a whole season where, you know, they felt that they were promised that they were going to find out who the killer was in the end of the first season. And then they didn't, you didn't find out. Didn't deliver on that. And people were furious and, like, abandoned the show, and it was like, and then the the second season uh was you know in the first season we were sort of like maria got nominated and it was sort of like good and then

the second season it was like just abandoned by critics and um and and then it and then it got canceled after two seasons um and then and then the third season got picked up again it was actually netflix second show that they produced it was a co-production with netflix they'd only done house of cards right and then they co-produced the third season of uh uh of the killing together with amc and then it got canceled again amc canceled it and then netflix ended up picking up like an abbreviated uh fourth season of it so it was a show that sort of really found an intense audience um but it was canceled twice right and then and then sort of after the fact on streaming it really um it it you know i i still like people that sort of know me from that show

they always they're always friendlier to me than people that know me from other things there's something with that character because

well there was something very endearing about him as fucked up as he was you know like you he was he seemed like a good hang

even though he was like chaotic and unstable yeah you know in his own weird fucked up way. Yeah, I love playing Holder. And that was sort of an interesting transition because that's a remake of a Swedish show. A Danish show, Danish show.

Oh, it's Danish. Yeah, we used to own them for a while, so it's okay. But yeah. Okay. But I assume that that then led to, you know, all of these opportunities, like getting noticed in that opened up the door for you. Yeah, yeah.

I mean, I was pretty arrogant and full of myself there for a while. Yeah. Yeah, because there was a while when I was like, just fucking cancel the show already. I want to go make big movies and be a movie star. I don't have time for this shit anymore. And then, but I was glad that at least while I was shooting the show, I kind of, when it came back, I did really appreciate that it was something special.

And also, like, me and Mireille, we got along so well and i mean we're we're close friends to this day and um and then what was really special with that show too was i mean we had so many great directors there's so many like feature film directors that came in and did episodes but jonathan demi um the the the you know the Silence of the Lamb and the legend, he fell in love with the show and then called Wiener and asked if he could come direct. And then he directed an episode in the third season and then he ended up directing the series finale.

Oh, wow. And he was one of those sort of um a bright genius like he was he was uh he had he was a like a friendly friendly genius you know he would every he was like a son you know that like when he looked at people they just kind of like warmed up and and like blossomed you know, he just had this, engaged everyone, everyone just, he's a beautiful man. Yeah, yeah. He died way too soon.

Legend. Obviously when you're early in your career, you're auditioning, you just wanna get jobs or whatever, but now in the position that you're in now, what is the process? Like, how do you choose what to get involved with? Like, what are the variables or the parameters that are most important to you when you're looking at a project to decide

like is this something i want to be in or invest in yeah i mean uh the the most important thing i mean the two most important things are the the director and the character. I think before I would actually put the director further down and I would put the character first. Now they're sort of equal and I realize that. I think it's also a different thinking when you're coming up and when you're trying to make a name for yourself than when you're sort of at a level and you want to make great things because like coming up it can even be good to to you know have a great role in a sort of semi

shitty project because you you have a chance to shine right now um and you can like if you're great and everyone else is mediocre, then you'll get noticed. So I think that's sort of how I looked at things when I was coming up. I was like, if I saw a role, I know I can make something out of that. And it doesn't matter who the director is as long as they stay out of my way. but then now it's like it doesn't matter if you're going to do a great performance in something that is a piece of shit because nobody's going to see it. And so now for me it's like director, character, story. I mean, they're all really, and it kind of has to check all the boxes.

I mean, they're all really, and it kind of has to check all the boxes. And then I think, you know, money is number four. Yeah, of course. I mean, but the thing is like you're in an industry where there isn't a ton of agency over what you get to do. But now that you're like this leading man and you're in all these movies and you've established that you can do the thing and you're bankable in that regard. When you look at the careers of so many actors, maybe great and not so great, their legacy or how we perceive them

or how we think of them as artists and what their careers mean boils down to the choices that they made. And some are really good at choosing the right projects. And then they have this extraordinary legacy and this like catalog of amazing work and others who are perhaps equally as talented or as bankable for some reason their picker isn't as good

or who knows what's going on, or maybe it's just luck. And look, nobody goes into a movie trying to make a bad movie. Like it's almost a miracle when a movie gets made, let alone is good. But at this, and there's only so much control you have over that, but you see these people and you're like,

oh, if they just done this or this, or they hadn't done that or whatever. And then suddenly they're out of the game and their career is on a very different arc or trajectory. So those choices that you make become like really mission critical in terms of how you think about your career and the longevity of what you want to do and what you want to stand for as an artist. Yeah, no, you nailed it. It's, yeah, especially, it's exactly that when you get to that position where you have built up an audience and people are sort of, you know, you want to create a feeling that, oh, we can go see, you know, a Joel Kinnaman movie and and it's gonna have a certain amount of quality like it might not it might not always be uh like a hit but there's gonna be a certain level like there's a certain kind of taste that that is um that you know that you can deliver on in some way and it

comes down to taste and how you pick but then you know there's a lot of variables of course so you can't control it all and uh and at my level i i i can't control it all but but uh yeah it's uh and you know you also i work with people as well and and i get their input and you know of course the decision comes down it's i make the decision of course but the decision comes down. I make the decision, of course, but I'm very happy with my manager and my agents. So we discuss these things and you try to limit the probability of it not being good. But then for me, it's also really important that the character scares me a little bit, you know.

Because I'm also always focusing on avoiding stagnation, you know, both as a person and as an artist. And so, you know, that's why I really tried to stay away from, you know, playing the same kind of character over and over again. really tried to stay away from, you know, playing the same kind of character over and over again. And it's sort of the artistic tradition that I come from in Europe where the highest is always to, as an actor, to, you know, do the most different kind of characters. You know, that's why Nick Cage is like the most incredible expression of that. But that is sort of in me the whole time. I'm trying to stay like, you know, 10% outside of my comfort zone and everything that I do. Who's the director that you most want to work with? Who's like at the top of the list of the people? Like if you had your druthers?

your druthers um you know of course tarantino you know it's uh he's he's you know been behind so many iconic uh characters say the safty brothers yeah um are they are they still going to be directing together i think they're kind of doing their own separate things right now okay so probably they're exciting filmmakers though yeah really really exciting um and you see the kind of performance that they get from their actors and they choose you know act you know they get what's what's so fascinating with them and you see that they they help the actor immerse themselves into the world that they are portraying so you know they get someone like rob pattinson or yeah what they got out of him in good time is insane that movie is unreal you know yeah i mean rob is you know becoming

one of the the you know he's one of the greatest of our generation for sure you know, he's one of the greatest of our generation for sure, you know. And he makes really interesting choices that are counterintuitive. I've always like really commended him, you know, because he got super famous and was like really, you know, hounded paparazzi famous after the whole, his vampire movies. And because he also got, you know, mixed into, you know, tabloid city with the girlfriend that he had at the time. So he had that really high level of fame. So the studios were throwing every spandex suit

they could find on him and he just would not put them on. He didn't do any superhero stuff or anything that other actors would kind of jump on because you know it's kind of a straight ticket to A-list level where you can really be bankable for bigger projects. And he instead went off and did a bunch of strange movies with really interesting directors. So he basically went to film school. Yeah. And, you know, Cronenberg and, you know,

all these films that he did. And he went to film school and started working with really interesting artists and then became a very interesting artist himself. So, you know. And then put on the Batman suit. And then he comes back and does Batman. I mean, that's like, that's how you do it.

He won. Like Rob won. I mean, that's like, that's how you do it. He won, like Rob won. I know, it's pretty funny. Speaking of great directors, I watched Girl with the Dragon Tattoo like two weeks ago. I was like revisiting all these Fincher movies, getting ready to watch The Killer. And hilariously, like you're like a staffer at Millennium Magazine in that movie,

like in the background, you have like no lines. I know. Doer at Millennium Magazine in that movie like in the background you have like no lines I know do you have a single line in that movie? I think I whisper something was that before the killing?

no it was during did you have did you get edited out? did you have lines that got edited out of that? no no no I was cast for the second and third movie

so that character became a bigger character in the second and third movie. So that character became a bigger character in the second and third movies, but then they never ended up happening. And then Fincher decided that he wanted to introduce the character in those scenes, just wanted to play some- You're just kind of around.

I know, it's pretty funny. Coming from Sweden and living here, what are the kind of cultural differences between the Swedish perspective on, I don't know, life and lifestyle versus United States? Like one of the things, like we opened this with talking about Wim Hof a little bit, like it's all about cold plunging and sauna here.

And it's like, well, this goes back thousands of years in Sweden. It must be hilarious to you that everyone's like losing their minds over this. Yeah, I mean, it's like, well, this goes back thousands of years and it must be hilarious to you that everyone's like losing their minds over this. Yeah, I mean, it's great. Also now when there's so much literature around it and people understand how good it is for your health, you know, and both in Sweden and Finland, you know, the Swedish and Finnish traditions

of also drinking vodka in the sauna, you know the swedish and finnish uh traditions of also drinking vodka in the sauna you know i don't know if that is a real like longevity measure um but um yeah i mean i think we have a more sort of stoic um approach to life and and i think uh know, it's really like an east and west thing where I think Sweden is also, you know, pretty far east. And when someone asks you, you know, like, how you doing? And then, you know, it's a very reasonable thing to say like bad, you know, not good today. You know, just heavy, you know, I just feel like I have a heavy day. You know, just woke up feeling really melancholy. And then that's that.

Okay. And then, and that can be a conversation. So that was like an issue for me when I moved here and I was sort of going to the meetings with Hollywood producers and casting agents and in, you know, like bright California. And, you know, you sit down in these meetings and to get to know each other and sort of, you're intended to like show your personality. And my approach to that was like, I'm going to like be who I am, you know, that's the personality that I have. So that's the only one I'm going to show. And, um, so when I woke up feeling melancholy on a day and I would go into one of these meetings with, you know, these like bright faced, uh, casting agents and they were like, hi, how are you feeling today? How are you doing? And I would be like, it's okay. You know,

and I, you know, I just feel pretty heavy today. I just felt like, you know, I don't know what I'm doing here. You know, what is this all about? And then I'd just be quiet. And you just see that their faces just fell, you know. And I'm like, you know, it's okay. I'm fine. I'm not going to kill myself, but I'm just, you know, just heavy today. How are you doing?

And then I learned later, I get the feedback, like, is he okay? And my manager would be like, you might wanna brighten it up a little bit. And so I learned that the hard way that when they ask, how are you doing? It's not a real question. Is this true or false?

Like there's a bit of a tall poppy syndrome thing in Sweden, right? Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. We call it the law of Janta, the Janta law. Janta? Yeah. I don't know why it's called that. It's just the name. So how does that work with you saying,

I'm going to go to America and be a movie star with your buddies back home yeah um yeah so i think my personality is probably like pretty unswedish um and uh and i think i my i i really looked up to the sort of american spirit and uh of uh you know and i and I loved how people here kind of celebrate others other people's success you know it's a um it's much less of a sort of like jealous snipiness of like cutting someone down that's trying something different and so I I sort of acknowledge and saw that existing here and and I and here. And I love that. I thought that this is so much more positive. For me, the whole thing of like feeling shitty or being disappointed in someone else's success was always like such a sign of weakness to me.

It was like I don't understand. Like I don't – I'm not like – my house isn't getting, you know, smaller because his house is getting bigger, you know. So to not be inspired by other people's success and feeling like shitty and then talking shit about it is like such a, I thought it was such a sign of weakness. And sort of that you didn't have the insight that you were kind of embarrassing yourself in behaving that way. So I think I had that analysis down pretty quickly in Sweden. And I remember like in my group of friends, it was a lot of competition. And it was a lot of competition. And I had a whole group of friends where I felt that they weren't on my team.

They weren't celebrating my success. And I was celebrating theirs. And I wasn't threatened by them doing well. But it wasn't the other way around. So it came to a point where I actually had a, like I broke up with a whole, my whole like older group of friends in Sweden and just like focused on like three or four of those friends.

You had done a lot of work in Sweden as a young person. I'm sure, you know, in that country, people knew who you were. And then at some point you like took a break, right? And just traveled. Like, I don't know if you quit acting, but you're like, I'm done for a while. And you went and did a whole bunch of different things

and had weird jobs and stuff like that. Was that like an intentional way of like just getting perspective on what you wanted to do and who you wanted to be or what was that all about? That was actually before I started acting. Oh, it was? Yeah. So it was, I finished, you know, high school

or the equivalent in Sweden. And then I went to Norway and just had a bunch of odd jobs to save money to go travel. And I hadn't made up my mind of what I wanted to do. So I had this idea that I was going to work and travel for seven years before I made up my mind of what I want to do with my life. That's a lot. Seven years?

Seven years. Why seven? It must be like I'll take a year or something. Yeah. No, I don't know. That's just something I had in my mind like my whole family is sort of travelers um uh everyone's like been sort of a backpacker my my dad is is a crazy story but um but even my mom and all my sisters we've all been you know going traveling around the world and that's been a you know big

part of our family culture um so so it was just something i wanted to see the world and and i i had no idea what i wanted to do with my life and uh wasn't very confident in anything i wasn't particularly good at anything i didn't have any sort of academic prospect because I kind of fucked up school. So it was just, I was just going to make money. I was pretty good at like hustling, making money. And then I was going to go travel. That was sort of my idea. And how did the acting thing come about then?

So I'd actually done a TV series when I was 10 years old. So I had like a childhood acting experience and my oldest sister she was an actor so she sort of introduced that it was a profession and um and then i got this opportunity to do this like tv series in sweden so i had i'd had a childhood experience of it when i was 10 and then sort of forgot about that and and then some of my friends uh were actors they were like they were going to acting school there was a couple of them so i was i had this i had this like childhood experience of it and and then you know i had these friends that were doing it and then after like a year and a half of traveling i just had

this idea like you know maybe i'll try that you know maybe i'll try that and then i started working with my friend uh gustav skarsgard who's uh uh alex skarsgard's younger brother and stella's son as well um and i started working with him and he was kind of shaking his head, but I didn't give up. And he gave me enough confidence to kind of continue. And then I decided that I was gonna try out for the National Theater School. And I worked with this actor, with an older actor. I got a actor with an older actor i got a hold of an

older actor that agreed to like work with me and and i was working on this uh this monologue from long day's journey into night by eugene o'neill and it was this text where like Edmund just finally like goes against his dad and just lets him hear every every like you know all of his uh he lets out all of his frustration and anger and sadness at his dad's you know failures and and not being there not caring and uh and I'd had my own issues with my dad and uh and it was like the and it like in one of the rehearsals when I was working with this text and then something just clicked in and the text just kind of came alive and it just took over and I got filled with emotion and the words just came flying out in a way that I wasn't really planning them.

And I understood later like this was the first time I had gotten flow. And, you know, after the scene was done, I was kind of like panting and just quiet. And, you know, of course, I understood in some way that like, this is probably not bad. And then that actor, Thomas, he was like okay listen you can you can do this as a profession um but you know it's gonna be a lot of work but but you you you can do this as a profession yeah you got locked in yeah yeah that's got to be an intoxicating

feeling though to know that you can connect with the material in that way and channel something from a flow state based on your experience and some facility for inhabiting a character yeah that was a high you know it was a real natural high and uh yeah and then i got really addicted to that feeling and i was chasing that and um and then i just became obsessed and and it was also, I hadn't really experienced being good at anything before. Like I've been okay, you know, but I was okay at sports. But I was never like great at anything. So it was the first time where I like, there's something that just kind of caught me in and I felt like I could maybe be good at something.

And that just changed my whole outlook and view on the possibility of my life. And yeah, I like started looking at myself with a different like level of potential and respect in a way and uh and then i just and then that feeling just it just started like vibrating and then and it just made me be become completely obsessed and i did nothing but it uh but but focusing on acting and and trying to get as good as possible and that's I, you know, to have like a peak experience like that, but also to have the self-awareness, the presence of mind to like recognize that that was a special moment and could perhaps lead your entire life

in a different direction. Yeah. And it makes me wonder, like you can't have those experiences unless you're putting yourself out there and trying lots of things. So many people go through life and maybe they never have an experience like that because they keep their lives sort of contained

in a certain way. But then of the people that are lucky enough to trip upon their version of that type of experience, what is the quality within an individual to like help them lock onto that and realize like the gravity of it or the importance or like the potential, it's like potential energy, right? Like, oh, here's something, if I nurture this,

maybe I can have a different kind of life. Yeah, yeah. I mean, I don't know. I think it has to be so individual, right? It has to sort of collide with your history and your life. And then the more I started working and then deeper in, I started seeing that sort of my life experience and the different experiences that I've had and in many ways, like all the problems that I'd had and all the trauma that I had experienced in my life, all of a sudden weren't like something

that was dragging me down, but it was actually like my greatest assets. Yeah, it's like fertile soil. Yeah, and I was like, fuck, I have all these pieces and all these experiences that I can like put into characters that I don't think that most people can. And so it, yeah.

And then you just have a bunch of SARS guards around you. Yeah. Cause everybody in Sweden knows everyone, right? Yeah. And then you just have a bunch of SARS guards around you. Yeah. Cause everybody in Sweden knows everyone, right? Yeah. And there's one high school. The crazy thing is me, Gustav Skarsgård, I think Bill Skarsgård too, Nomi Rapace, who plays the girl with the dragon tattoo.

We all went to the same high school. And Alexander also? Alex lived right next door to that high school because that's where the Skarsgårds lived. But I think he went to another school actually. That's a pretty high hit rate, like per capita. Yeah, crazy. There needs to be like a plaque or something like that.

Have you gone back to your high school or like revisited, you know, that place to kind of marinate? No, I actually didn't really fully graduate. They'll give you an honorary degree though. You can go back there at some point. It's called like, in Swedish it's called samlat betygs dokument. It's like a collection of your grades, but it's not like a diploma

because I actually didn't get enough points. Right. You have a place in Sweden now, right? Yeah. yeah well we have sort of a family place um so a few years ago i bought a plot of land in the archipelago and um and we've just been adding little houses so i built like a family village uh-huh which island? It's in the archipelago, it's called Veda. It's like an hour and a half from Stockholm. I've traversed the archipelago. Oh, really? Yeah.

There's 40,000 islands in the Stockholm archipelago. I did the, I'm gonna butcher this pronunciation. So you tell me how bad this is. Otillo. Do you know what that is? Otillo. Otillo, the swim run world championships. Oh, okay.

Which is the swim, it's a 75 kilometer race where you start in San Tom and you go to Uto, it's like 75 kilometers and you go, you swim and run across all the islands. You're in like a modified wetsuit with your running shoes on. And so you're swimming with your running shoes on and you climb up the rocks and you run across these islands

and you jump back in the water and you basically go. Is that the sort of Ironman, Ironman-ish? It's like it's a thing that started there and now there's a series of these races all over the world. Have you done the Ironman? Are you in that sort of? Yeah, I do a bunch of endurance stuff. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

But I did, I think it was 2017 that I did that race. Okay. Yeah, so it was pretty cool. So I got to see up close and personal what those islands are like. It's so beautiful. What's the most challenging thing that you've done? That was the hardest one day thing that I've ever done.

How many hours does it take? Oh, I think it was like nine or 10 hours or something like that. But the guys that are, so first of all, on that day, it was like the world's worst weather. There was like sideways rain. Yeah, we got a lot of that.

Four to six foot like chop. It was banana, like all day. It was like the most miserable experience ever. And then you're freezing in the water and then you're running across these islands and you're in like a wetsuit. So you start to get overheated. And just when you start to warm up,

then you're back in the water, you're like uncomfortable the entire time. So that, yeah, as a one day thing, that was probably the hardest, but I've done this race called Ultraman. It's a three day double Ironman around the big Island of Hawaii. And I've done that a bunch of times.

Jesus. Done well in that race. And then I did five Ironmans. So, one Ironman wasn't enough. I never did just an Ironman. I went to the longer stuff. It's a whole other thing, but this is not about me. This is about you.

So, my point being. Yeah, but I'm curious. My point being, I know the archipelago better than most. And what's interesting about that race is when the gun goes off, like I'm a good swimmer. So I was like near, you know, I was in good position. The first swim is like a kilometer crossing. And then you get to this island on the other side.

And I've been training around here in the mountains and desert and whatever, going to the pool and then doing trail running. And I thought that would be good. And these like Swedish special forces guys who train year round on this course to win this race, climb out of the water and they're dancing on these rocks like ballet dancers and everybody's falling

and some guy cracked his head open immediately. It's not like, it's like an obstacle course as much as anything else. Yeah, it was wild. Wow. So maybe we ran across your island, I don't know. Your compound there. But mid summer, like that time of year

in that part of the world is just the greatest thing. Yeah, it's pretty epic. We have like on our property, we have a sauna that's, it's legally a boat. So it's like on a raft. Initially, it was to get away from having to apply for building permits. It's hard to get building permits close to the coast. And all the dwellings on all those islands look like it it definitely looks like it's controlled like

you can't just build whatever you want yeah and it's it's very it's very much about how it blends into the nature and like we have all of our houses when when you uh it's like it's like six houses now on the property but when you come from the ocean you almost can't see them because they're all like, they're all colored like the wood. It's like wood colored and with like blue, so it kind of blends into the sky. And that's very much a sort of Swedish aesthetic to like, you sort of, nature is the highest and you want to leave as little of a footprint as possible.

So that's also the laws, like you can't have too much glass because that creates glare and wow. It's often said that the Scandinavian countries have like the highest happy quotient. Like people are just happier there than they are in other parts of the world, despite the fact that the winter is like endless

and it's dark most of the time. Like when you reflect upon your upbringing there, your Swedish heritage, like why do you think that is? What is the sensibility of those cultures that lead to a greater degree of happiness than we experience here? I don't know. I mean, I don't know how much you can actually,

like if those are true, those like sort of how people, I mean. If you watch Scandi Noir, it doesn't look like everyone's very happy. It doesn't look like it, right. I think that there is a general sense of, I think more people in general are sort of in contact with nature and in nature, spend time in nature um i think we have things like

you know we sauna uh get in the ocean even when it's colder um i think those things are probably very good um but i mean i know a lot of depressed swedes too and i think the suicide rate is pretty high as well so um and and the level of like alcoholism especially in the north is pretty high as well but um the danes seem to be happier than than the swedes uh finland yeah and the the fins are definitely not happy i mean they're definitely not happy. I mean, they're definitely not happy. I mean, they're almost Russian. You know, the Finns are their own thing. They're, I don't know.

I think that there is sort of some level of stoicism in society that you sort of like accept the way things are. And I think that's, I think people don't have too much expectation either. You know, I think Swedes are pretty good at managing their expectations. So they won't get that disappointed. There's also a safety net.

Everyone kind of knows they can only fall so far before they'll be caught. And my sense is just that everybody's out moving all the time. It doesn't matter how dark or cold it is. Like they're skating on the frozen waters or they're cross-country skiing or they're swimming or they're, you know, jumping in freezing water in a way that isn't is does feel different than here yeah no for sure and that's sort of what i was getting to with like people being in nature people i think exercise much more in general the level of obesity is uh uh is very different than here. They feel like they're working to live more than we sort of live to work here. Yeah, the general work week is 40 hours.

So I think that's probably a lot less than here. And then the normal suite has six weeks vacation, six to eight weeks a year. Yeah. So there's definitely that. When you look back on your career, I mean, you came here to plant your flag in Hollywood and you've certainly done that, right? And feels like didn't take that long. I'm sure maybe it feels like it was longer than maybe you would have liked, but on some level, like you've realized your dreams and your

ambitions, and I'm sure there's plenty of more things that you want to do and goals that you have and all of that. But when you reflect upon that, like, what do you think, like certainly talent, luck, like a lot of things have to coincide for this type of success, but do you think, like certainly talent, luck, like a lot of things have to coincide for this type of success. But do you think that you have a certain strength or quality that has allowed you to succeed? Like, what is your superpower? I think, you know, I have a grind in me.

I think I have a grind in me and I wouldn't take failure as, I wouldn't accept failure. And I think when I've met, when I've come across like real adversity, I've found the method in me I I used to have I've told this story before but it's one of my most most important things that happened to me and sort of how what I grew out of it I used to have really punishing stage fright where I would throw up every time before I went on stage. It's hard to believe that. Yeah. And then I would start getting panic attacks on stage. And it was just an accumulation.

I was still in acting school when this was happening. And I had these voices in my head that were, of course, it was like insecurity. And it was like I was faced with the reality that maybe I'm not equipped to do this because it's clear. Like I'm going up on stage and I'm not being able to do it because of what's happening inside my head. I was about three years into acting school, and I just had this horrendous breakdown in front of the whole school and an audience with people from the outside

where I just so completely lost it, and I couldn't recover. And I just felt humiliated and embarrassed. And I had this long talk with myself where i was like i i maybe this is me telling myself that you know this is it so but then the idea of to quit was you know it was like to quit it was it felt like killing myself um because i hadn't you know finding acting was the it just gave me this whole purpose in life it it i i felt like my identity before acting was just like a little thug that was you know just a hustler kind of living a pretty ugly life where, you know, I would do a lot of different things to just get money.

And, you know, I mean, I was like robbing people. Yeah, wow. Like the character in The Killing a little bit. A little bit of life-dusting about it. You know, and I really didn't have any moral compass. And I really didn't have any moral compass. I mean, selling shit and just not living a positive... It was like... I don't think that I would have ended up being a career criminal at all, but I was just living a negative life with shitty people around.

And then this acting thing just really opened up something for me. It was like a possibility. It was like a window into a different life. And I understood later it opened up a window of feeling differently about myself. So when I was sort of confronted with this, it was so devastating. And and and it was and i couldn't accept it but i didn't know what to do like like i didn't know what to do i didn't know what to do um so then i

in in the in that darkness i sort of came up with this like hail mary of an idea i was like these fucking demons that are in my head, like these voices that like cripple me, that ruin everything. Like what is the worst thing that they could experience? Like what is the worst thing? And then I figured out it would be to do like a monologue on stage where I'm like,

just me, nothing. And I just, and I was like, okay, I'm going to do that. I'm going to do that. I'm going to challenge these. And the next project that we had in school was we had our own projects. And it was like a three-week deal

where we got to do our own thing for three weeks. And most people took it as sort of a break. They did like one scene together, like four people did one scene. And I found this play uh called howie the rookie it was like this uh play from northern ireland and it's written for two people where the first person is is then featured in the second uh storytellers and i did both. And I ended up doing this play. I ended up creating 16 different characters

that all had like a different body and a different voice. And I started rehearsing this play like I was obsessed, like I was possessed. And it ended up being like about an hour and 40 minutes long. I knew it by heart after 10 days. I was off because it was all I did. And then we presented it for the school. And I don't know, there was something I was just overcome with.

I was so obsessed with kind of defeating this. I guess it was fear or I don't know what it was but not accepting myself as a success or you know i don't know what it what it was like what those voices actually are that sort of insecurity but played it and didn't trip on a word like just smashed it and ended up doing five performances of that and then it that play got picked up by the National Theatre hmm so I actually ended up continued to playing it professionally. And after that, because that's actually like really high difficulty level,

you know, because I had so many different characters and I was sort of playing it in the format of like, I watched, I wanted to sort of make it feel like Richard Pryor, you know. Like a stand up, one man show kind of thing. That sort of way of like talking, you know, where the standup one man show. It was that sort of way of like talking, you know, where,

um, where the characters would talk with each other and, and, um, you know, and of course I didn't have the pressure of needing to be funny. Um, but it had funny elements in it.

But after that, then the first job that I got after I finished acting school, um, was, was to play Raskolnikov in Crime and Punishment. And it was also the opening play of a new national theater with one of the best Swedish, maybe the best Swedish playwright that did a whole new revamp of,

and I was on the stage for three hours and 40 minutes doing Raskolnikov, and I think that would have been like really crippling for me before, that's for sure, but for anyone, it was like a lot of pressure for that to be your first job. But after I had done this monologue, it felt like nothing. Like I had so much, it felt like nothing like i had so much it felt like so much easier and and that sort of that was the the inflection point in my career that's where everything changed and i and i found a way to like

create real confidence by facing my fears and uh and like and going going at it head on. And that I found that solution in that darkness, it changed everything for me. And it also became sort of a metric of how I dealt with difficult times ahead. To run towards them. Yeah, to face it and to like challenge it. And it's like, okay, watch this. Right, yeah.

I mean, there's so much in what you just shared. I mean, this idea that you're this aimless person who is perhaps on a not so great trajectory, who's lacking self-esteem, stumbles into this situation where you found something that is truly meaningful to you and then struggling to be able into this situation where you found something that is truly meaningful to you, and then struggling to be able to kind of master

your own vehicle to do it is almost like an existential crisis, right? Like the stakes are very high for you, because you're like, I finally found this thing and now I can't do it. Like that's terrifying. How do you resolve that? And to have the instinct to move towards it

rather than away from it is almost like your own form of exposure therapy. Like the only way I can like get over this is to like de-stigmatize it by upping the ante and putting my forcing myself to be in that situation and walk through the fear to get to the other side. But to do that with a project of such a high degree of difficulty,

like, yeah, it's almost like an instinctual thing that you came up with that probably wasn't even on some level conscious. No, it definitely wasn't conscious. It just, yeah, I mean, it was kind of out of just desperation. It, like, I don't have it in me to, like, kill myself. But to sort of give up would be to, it would be to kill the potential of any life that I actually wanted to live. So to sort of give up on that was so depressing.

So I think that's why I found the courage in a way to sort of- But then to have that muscle memory around running towards something that scares you. I mean, the question that I asked you is like, if you have a superpower, what is it? You said, you know how to grind, but beneath that, it's that instinct to go towards the scary thing

that spills over into every aspect of your life. Like if you have that facility to not shy away from those things, then you're in this sort of curious growth mindset way of approaching your life, right? This was a very good conversation. I actually haven't put, I hadn't put those things together before, yeah.

Do you find yourself doing that in other areas of your life? I mean, you mentioned that you have a relationship coach. Like that's another, like you have to seek out, like you have to be willing to go into an uncomfortable place if you wanna have greater intimacy in your relationships, if you want to advance your career. Like every category, the solution is always moving towards the thing that you wish you didn't have to do. Yeah.

And I think also like the great things in life you get by putting in a lot of work. Like it's, so like the relationship that I have, you know, with the woman that I, it's, we don't have an easy relationship. Like we, not long ago, we were throwing smoothies at each other in public, you know. What's the, where's the differential? Like, what do you, where's the where's the the differential like what do you

where's the tension like what's the what's the issue that you run up against I mean it's all her fault you know it's all

tell it to the relationship yeah no we're both pretty stubborn people and we both like to get it our way and and you know it's like sometimes it's like fire

fire meets fire yeah and um and we have a lot of passion and a lot of fun um but find it hard to compromise and it like, we're gonna figure it out and we're gonna have like a great big life. But it's gonna- You need a little outside intervention. Oh, like- Keep it from going off the rails. Outside, inside.

It's like, it's Mark, it's MDMA, it's all of those things. So psychedelics is part of that protocol? Yeah, for sure. Wow, interesting. Yeah, for sure. Your mom's a therapist though, right?

So it's not like therapy is a foreign concept. No, but actually I haven't like, I've been trying to find a good therapist for myself. I haven't done much therapy, actually. Like, I don't have, like, someone that I talk with on an individual level, and I really need it. But I've struggled finding someone. But yeah, I think I grew up with, my mom definitely always instilled a way of dealing with problems, talking about problems, like trying to getting to the bottom

of like what's really going on. Like why did you throw this thing at the teacher? Yeah, you were like a hyperactive kid who was getting in trouble. Yeah, I think I was a bit of a nightmare. and uh yeah you were like a hyperactive kid who was getting in trouble yeah yeah i was i was i think i was a bit of a nightmare uh-huh and how are things with dad uh great now uh uh we definitely had our uh volatile period and uh and also he was you know raised in an American way where, you know, he got his fair share of licks. And, you know, a little bit of that translated into our relationship.

So rocky during your turbulent adolescence. Yeah, but, you know, it was, he didn't know how to deal with me. He responded poorly. And he had problems with his anger, controlling his anger. But we got through it. And, you know, when I was, I think in my early 20s, we had, you know, this couple of really deep conversations where, you know, he apologized for some of the things that he'd done. And we have a really beautiful and close relationship now. That's good.

and we have a really beautiful and close relationship now. That's good. How do you stay grounded and right-sized with all the nonsense and bullshit that comes with the fame part of what you do? Yeah, I don't find it so hard, but for me, my level of fame, it's a little different in Sweden. It can get a little intense still,

even though it's not as intense as it was, you know, maybe five years ago. For me, it's really important to have, like, really good people around you that you have real friendships with. I mean, one big key is to not sort of play the fame game and just hang out with people that you hang out with because how they reflect on you.

Do you have like a solid group of friends here that aren't afraid to tell you what's what? Yeah, yeah. You have to have that. But also, like, I don't need that really. You know, I know what's what and um i think that i i had a period of my life where i got lost in that i i didn't realize it and till a few years ago but where i was really concerned i was thinking a lot about how I was perceived. And I was really focused on how I was being perceived.

And I would even choose friends on how they would sort of reflect on me. And like, you know, I want to be, you know, this guy, you know, that comes with a big crew. And then I think social media really doesn't help. And then I think social media really doesn't help. But actually, this was like more before that. But yeah, and then I realized that, you know, like that is such a hollow pursuit, you know, it's so shallow to look at life and people around you. So I sort of figured that out. And then I stayed away from all that kind of stuff.

I really haven't been chasing any of those sort of... It was a couple of years when I got a little bit lost in it and I wanted to be seen with, you know, other famous people and, you know, I wanted to be seen as someone that had a big crew that, you know. Rolling deep.

Rolling deep. Entourage, the whole thing. Well, I noticed that you've stepped back from social media. I mean, you used to share videos and stuff like that. And I went to your Instagram and there's just like one picture and you're like, clearly you're not participating in this anymore.

Yeah. No, that was a great realization. How bad it was for me. And it just put my mind in the wrong place. For me, social media just made me look at my life and made me feel like I wasn't doing enough, that I should have all these other things. I should be doing this. I should be doing that. It just gave me a bunch of anxiety. And I realized I'm a pretty happy person. And I was just realizing that the anxiety that I was feeling, a lot of it was like coming from that.

And then when I cut it out and when I removed all social media, man, it really changed me. Talk more about that. Yeah. First of all, it's, it's so much noise. You just care and think about so much bullshit. It's like gossip. It's basically gossip. You're looking at other people's lives and seeing the fake version that they're holding up to the world.

So it's a bunch of noise. But then it also makes you feel shitty about yourself. And it makes me feel like, man, I should be doing this. I should be doing that. Why don't I have this? Why don't I have friends like that? Oh, you know, all these like stupid thoughts

that aren't based in reality and have zero value, but they're, and these algorithms are just like kind of feeding on insecurity. And as soon as I cut it out, like it just like all faded away. And I, you know, I realized I wasn't missing out on anything. I mean, I miss out on some economic opportunities of, you know, endorsement deals and stuff like that, but it's okay. I make money in other ways. Yeah, I mean, you're legit established. Like it's really not necessary for you. I can imagine for somebody who's coming up,

like this is what you have to do and you have to be active here. And this is how you, you know, unless you develop or cultivate some level of following, it's more difficult to get cast or whatnot. You're kind of past that. So you don't have to worry about that. But on some level as an actor,

it doesn't serve you for the public to know so much about you, right? Like your job is to be subsumed into a character. And there's something about the mystique of like not knowing what this person's private life is all about that I think makes you more potent as a performer, but the incentives of our modern culture

are all moving in the other direction. But when we look at somebody like Quentin Tarantino or Daniel Day Lewis, like we don't know anything about them. Like they're incredible artists who go away and disappear for however long and then return to treat us all to their gift and we celebrate them and it's all we think and talk about culturally for a moment because they're just in their art. Yeah. Like they don't have to participate in this whatever you want to call it like fucking bullshit influencer economy or whatever it is,

that's now sort of part of, it's sort of considered part of the job for somebody like you. So do you have pressure? Like, are there, like, do you have team members who are like, you sure you wanna do that? Like, you know. No, actually not.

Like, because my team is so old school and it's also, I think, because acting is still pretty like shielded from it. So it's really, you know, of course, there are a bunch of these sort of stars that have social media and, you know, they have businesses and all this is sort of intertwined and they, you know, you know, the Rocks and the Ryan Reynolds of the world that are also really good at it.

They're good at it. I mean, that just feels like their talent. It feels natural for them to do it. You know, it doesn't feel forced. I mean, Ryan is the best, you know. He's incredible. But he's also, he's so funny and it's like. And you can tell he's enjoying it.

Yeah, yeah. For me, I was just, I sucked at it. And it just made me a more nervous, insecure person in general. And, you know, if you figure it out, it's great. You know, like, if you enjoy it and you're good at it, you know, there's there's if if you enjoy it and and and you're good at it uh you know it's great i'm i think there's a lot of professional benefits to it but for me the the the benefits of staying off way outweighed the benefits i was getting from from like trying to participate in that in that whole game and um and then you know even though i i sort of came up old school in the way that you know just like you were saying that you want to you want the audience to know as little

about you as as possible for then it would be easier for them to suspend their disbelief when they see you in a in a character i don't know if that really matters that much, but I just don't want to, I don't want to play that game. Yeah. I'm sure you get asked all the time by young actors, aspiring actors, you know, for advice for a young artist that's at the inception of their career and they're staring down the barrel of all the obstacles and challenges that are inevitably gonna come in their direction. What is the advice that you give

to somebody who has an artistic aspiration? Don't have a plan B. Go all in. There's no other alternative. If you have a plan B, as soon as it gets tough, that will weed out all the pretenders. And that's the scary part. But it is a high-risk, high-reward endeavor.

And the competition is so high. There's so many talented people that want it. You know, there is a great life at the other end of it with both artistic and monetary rewards. So, you know, of course, it's a really attractive best case outcome. But if you want to get there, it's like just being talented is not going to be enough. So you got to become, I mean, I'm just speaking from my experience, and my experience is you have to become obsessed,

and I think you have to have a singular focus. And I think you have to have a singular focus. So that means at least for a part of your life being prepared to sacrifice everything else and just do that. I think that's the only way. But if there's another way, that's great. But that was sort of what worked for me. And when I've talked to other friends that also have kind of gotten through that sort of needle or been able to thread that needle, it's, yeah. Patience, persistence. Yeah.

patience persistence yeah and uh like i mean my goal was when i started out i didn't have like hollywood in mind at all for me success looked like being an actor that you know is on stage and sometimes gets to do like tv and film you know in Sweden that was like success but I also saw that you have to be like top 10 top 15 percent of the most successful because you know I remember I would go to you know in my acting school you know the the National Theatre School would have these sort of parties and on the weekends and then you know these actors would come and hang out school we'd have these sort of parties and uh on the weekends and then you know these actors would come and hang out and you'd have these sort of actors in their 40s 50s that were not successful and they would hang out at these school parties because they were hoping that some theater director was going to show up and they had this, you know,

this desperate stench. And I saw that like that life because it's such a, it's a tricky profession where you're always like looking for the next gig, you know, there's- You have to be comfortable with a lot of uncertainty. Yeah, very, very, very comfortable with that. But it's also, you're always in pursuit of another gig. So if people are not wanting to,

if they're not asking you to dance, you're going to be standing there on the dance floor. And if you do that too long, I think it does something to you that's not good. You become insecure. And also because it's so paired with who you are, it's a difficult profession to be unsuccessful in. That also becomes repellent to other people.

So it's a cycle, right? Yeah. Because the more desperate you are, the less people, people can read that energy and it moves them in a direction opposite to where you are. Yeah. So I actually, even though I had this like,

this sort of enormous, you know, I felt this gratitude and I found this, you know, this passion for this and it created a positive identity for myself for the first time. I also saw this and I actually vowed to myself that if I'm not in the top 10% of my generation after three years, I'm gonna quit

and I'm gonna do something else. And that's something I told myself. I don't know if I would have. Yeah, I was wondering like if that had occurred, do you think you would have done that? I don't know. Because the other piece here that I think is really important is that lights on moment where you locked in and you had that flow state experience

and the lights went on and you realize like, this was something that you could fall in love with. Like that's not about a career, it's not about, you know, paychecks or anything like that. That's about like something inside of you that needed to be nourished. And I think that speaks to like the authenticity of the journey that you went on.

Like, what does this mean? What is the why behind it, I think? Because the why is the only thing that's gonna sustain you, especially if you don't have a plan b that's true yeah i think maybe that was a maybe that was something that i was telling myself you know to push myself um because it is it is a tricky thing that you know but but but it is also what i to to really like when when people ask you know me um me like how to do it and how to, like how do I get famous?

And how do I, and I'm like, if you start in that end of fame, then you're done. You have to fall in love with the craft and you have to become obsessed with the craft and continue to hone that and then like the success will come um and i think i i think that's it too but but but it is it is a tricky profession to to uh to get stuck in know, if you don't, but I think the only way is to go all out

and to just be relentless. The crazy thing about it is that it's one of the only career paths where your entire life could change overnight, like audition, audition, audition, audition, and then, you know, pilot or whatever it is. And like everything changes. So it's almost like this weird slot machine.

Not that it's all about luck. Like obviously there's preparation and talent and there's a lot that goes into it. But I think that that sensibility that is dark as it is, or as hard as it is that it could literally change tomorrow because you got a callback, can keep people in it maybe longer than they should. I don't know.

Like, but I would imagine that you can create an unhealthy relationship with that fantasy of what a life could be that detracts from the craft piece of it yeah but the thing is that when I look at like fellow actors and and people that I've known over the years the people it's very rare where you see someone that is really talented and also works really hard that doesn't eventually, you know, get their due. That's good to hear. It's. Because I would have thought maybe it's not quite the case.

Like it's not a meritocracy. Like I'm sure you know lots of super talented performers who, you know, don't get the break or the breaks don't come as easily as perhaps fairness would say they should. I feel like a lot of the time, you know, and then of course success can look in different ways, but the hard thing is to kind of stay strong and to nourish your confidence while being rejected when you're sort of in this audition game. Yeah. And I think you have to find other ways to practice your craft, to just do a play and to get on stage and put something together yourself where you're actually practicing your craft and where you can showcase it

and not just do, 100 auditions. Right, right. Are you going to get back on the stage? Man, I've been saying that for so long. And it's, I was, I've been actively looking. I'm trying, but. What's next? What do you got coming up?

Well, who knows? It's this whole, this fall has been very frustrating with strikes and projects moving. The whole business got shook up. So I've had a couple of projects push and fall apart. And I'm supposed to go shoot something in January. I think now it's pushing to March. And yeah, I had my whole year booked up. My whole year was kind of set and then things fell apart and then I had it set again. And so I'm not 100% sure. Yeah. The things that I have lined up are,

half of them are sort of independent and they're more vulnerable to change. Yeah. Well, I'm a fan, dude. I appreciate you coming to talk to me today. It's cool to get a glimpse into your life. Thanks, man. I really enjoyed this conversation.

This is the longest. Is it? We can keep going. We can go for hours more if you want. No, but I love podcasts and I love listening to podcasts. So it's really valuable to have these long-form conversations. Yeah, cool, man. I got some insights into myself here.

Good. Glad to give you something. Did I find my therapist? I'll serve that role for you. And yeah, come back when you have something more to talk about. I'd love to I really enjoyed talking to you

I appreciate it so did I so everybody check out Silent Night I think it's coming out on VOD

like December it's playing in theaters it's in theaters now this isn't going up right away I think

but it will be available for streaming soon too I think I think on the 19th of December it's available on VOD

and for all mankind for all mankind streaming there's so many things I wanted to talk to you about we didn't even get to go deep into all of that so yeah

I'd love to have you back Matt yeah yeah if you'll come back I'll be back for sure peace dude bro

peace cheers that's it for today. Thank you for listening. I truly hope you enjoyed the conversation. To learn more about today's guest, including links and resources related to everything discussed today, visit the episode page at richroll.com, where you can find the entire podcast archive, as well as podcast merch, my books, Finding Ultra, Voices of Change, and The Plant Power Way, as well as The Plant Power Meal Planner

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