It's hard to act with just your jaw.
— Joel Kinnaman
An amateur can be great in front of the camera, but you need an education to get on stage where you have full control as an actor.
We are all a unique person with everyone we meet.
What I enjoy most with acting is when it's a good scene with one or two other actors, and you feel a strong connection, and you don't know how you're going to respond, and everybody is listening to each other and getting affected by each other, and even though you've rehearsed it many times, it feels like it's happening right now.
I'm not a method actor per se, but if I'm playing a character that, at its core of its persona, has experiences I don't have, I try to search out and get firsthand experiences of similar sorts so I have something to fantasize about.
Sometimes if you start a relationship when you're young, you're not as fully developed as a person. You need a relationship that lets you develop in different ways. You need to bounce off different people.
If I play a villain, I try to find his lightness and his good side. And if I play a hero or a good guy, I'll try to find his darkness or his flaws. Because I don't believe in good and evil. I believe in grays.
It's very nice to be in a show where your vanity is completely out of the picture.
I think I'm a boxer, but then when I get hurt, I'll start scrapping.
I loved 'The Artist.' I thought it was fantastic.
Moving in is almost a bigger step than getting married.
In Sweden, there's a lot of talk of gender equality. That discussion isn't as prevalent in the U.S. I feel that successful American women are tougher than Swedish women - they create their space.
I always identified myself as non-Swedish. I was never discriminated against, because I looked Swedish and speak without an accent. But I had an outsider's perspective.
The way I live my life or conduct myself when I have a problem is very different from many of the characters I play.
A lot of the friends I had went on to become criminals.
I love watching Samuel L. Jackson do anything, but for me, Gary Oldman is the grandmaster of the game.
My father is American and deserted the Vietnam War.
I'm happy that people have watched and appreciated my work. That's why I'm doing it.
All of our colleges are free in Sweden, but this acting program is the second most expensive education for the government. It's difficult to get in. There are around 1,500 applicants, and 10-12 applicants are accepted each year. I was accepted, and I studied there for five years.
A big moment for me was when I did a play that was a new adaptation of Dostojevskij's 'Crime and Punishment,' and I played Raskolnikov. It was actually the first thing I did when I got out of acting school.
When it's a moral grey zone, the audience has to think about what they feel and what they think is right or wrong. You want to affect your audience and make them think.
I think that in Sweden and a lot of European countries, there's this whole mythology of the wounded artist: that you can't really do any great art unless you're suffering.
Mid-range to low-budget movies have to have a name in the lead to get financing for it.
I love 'Breaking Bad.' I'd watch Bryan Cranston read the phone book, for days.
I'm a crybaby.
In philosophy, they talk a lot about humans being actual organic machines, and the idea of free will is something that we've made up. We actually don't have free will. We're acting according to our programming as organic mechanisms.
We retell our favorite stories. That's what we've done since we were sitting around campfires. It's a part of the human spirit. It doesn't have to be negative to creativity. It can be completely opposite. That's how you can break new ground: by rethinking something that's already been done.
I've learned to steer away from the wrong kind of woman for me.
When I first came to the States, I thought I had a perfect American accent, and then I was abruptly becoming aware that it wasn't. So I did have to work on it a little bit, but I was hesitant working on it because I thought it was good.
I speak English with my dad and Swedish with my mom; it's quite schizophrenic.
My parents got married when I was 12.
My impression was, 'This Hollywood thing doesn't seem too hard.'
I like L.A., but it's just too many people in the same business everywhere you go. You lose perspective.
I'm a physical actor in that I start with a physical sketch of the character. I find it easier to find inspiration from the outside in. If I find the character's tensions and the way he carries himself or looks, that's going to affect how I talk. So that's how I start to create that person.
I'm a bit like a chameleon with my accent.
We have nobility in Sweden, and it comes from the old British aristocracy.
It's so scary to go on stage. I used to throw up before I went on stage, every time.
Have you seen these Japanese hospital droids, or humanoids, or whatever they call it? They've perfected the skin, and the skin looks so real. They have these motors between the eyes for when they smile. It's just mind-blowing.
I'm a pretty light and light-spirited person; I'm not a depressed guy.
I'm battling with keeping my narcissism at bay as it is, so Twitter was not a good thing for that.
I think 'The Wire' is my all-time favorite TV show. It's so brilliant, the way it critiques society, and how it handles that everybody who gets power loses their moral code and stops going to the root of the problem and just tries to maintain their own power.
We remake 'Hamlet' all the time. That's sort of what we do, humans.
In most scripts, one or two characters have a lot of colors.
Nobody wants to be depressed - everybody's trying to feel better; when they strive and fail, it's all the more poignant.
I've hurt people unnecessarily when it was about my own insecurities. But you have to make those mistakes to become a better person.
I was a Swedish guy who listened to Too Short.
I'm a pretty good chess player.
In terms of whether my mom was influential, I think she instilled a certain way of thinking in me quite early: having a reflective mindset regarding my actions and trying to find the underlying reasons to behavior. I think that's quite helpful when you're trying to understand a character.
I've followed Gary Oldman his whole career... I've watched the movies he's directed, like 'Nil by Mouth' - I've seen that five times!
I was on a Swedish soap opera when I was 10.
