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.

Joel Kinnaman

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.

Joel Kinnaman

Good Villain Villa

It's hard to act with just your jaw.

Joel Kinnaman

Your You Wit

We all can relate to people's weaknesses. We might put up a facade that everything is perfect but none of us are. When we see that weakness in somebody else, we understand or give ourselves a little bit of leeway.

Joel Kinnaman

Weaknesses Weakness Weak

I would like to be able to do as many of my own stunts where I can.

Joel Kinnaman

Would Where UN

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.

Joel Kinnaman

Car Art Wit

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.

Joel Kinnaman

Without Wit Wed

We're all a big hippie family so I got five sisters and a bunch of different mothers. Not really, but my sisters' mothers are all good friends with my mother. We're a big family, 25 people.

Joel Kinnaman

Good Family Wit

In most scripts, one or two characters have a lot of colors.

Joel Kinnaman

Two T Scripts

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.

Joel Kinnaman

Work War Good

I miss the Swedish women on the first day of spring cause they all just blossom in the most incredible way.

Joel Kinnaman

Women Men Wed

I'm a pretty good chess player.

Joel Kinnaman

Good T Pretty Good

It's so scary to go on stage. I used to throw up before I went on stage, every time.

Joel Kinnaman

Time Car Age

I went to high school in Texas for one year, my senior year. My parents wanted me to get out of Stockholm because I was running with the wrong crew. They wanted me to get back to my roots.

Joel Kinnaman

Year Wrong Wit

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.

Joel Kinnaman

Zone Your You

I think I'm a boxer, but then when I get hurt, I'll start scrapping.

Joel Kinnaman

Art Think Thin

I read a couple of books about neuroscience and the relationship between the mind and the body.

Joel Kinnaman

Science Relationship Up

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.

Joel Kinnaman

Men Government Education

Being an actor in movies is a lot about the power of your imagination and making the circumstance real to you so the audience will feel that it's real.

Joel Kinnaman

Power Movies Imagination

In Sweden, I went to an English school, where there was a mishmash of people from all over the world. Some were diplomatic kids with a lot of money, some were ghetto kids who came up from the suburbs, and I grew up in between. There's a community of second generation immigrants, and I became part of that because I had an American father.

Joel Kinnaman

Money Art World

For somebody in my neighborhood to aspire or revere a person from the upper class, that is the most ugly and pathetic behavior you could exhibit.

Joel Kinnaman

You Upper Up

I grew up in a working class neighborhood in Sweden, which, during my teens, gentrified and is now completely middle class and even upper middle class.

Joel Kinnaman

As actors, we're like these vagabond artists: we have to be invited to perform, so if you don't have a choice of options, it's very hard to define yourself.

Joel Kinnaman

I think I've seen the first 'RoboCop' like 15 or 20 times. I'm like a kid that way.

Joel Kinnaman

I'm a pretty light and light-spirited person; I'm not a depressed guy.

Joel Kinnaman

I usually have pretty good intuition on projects that I work on.

Joel Kinnaman

In the first test screening of 'RoboCop,' it tested very high. Then they asked the people why they liked it, and the first answer was, 'I liked it because it was political.' And the second answer was because, 'It feels like it deals with current affairs.' And the third answer was, 'Because it feels emotional.'

Joel Kinnaman

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.

Joel Kinnaman

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.

Joel Kinnaman

I always look for good stories and good characters, and if they're placed in a whodunit, then I'm interested.

Joel Kinnaman

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.

Joel Kinnaman

I'm a bit like a chameleon with my accent.

Joel Kinnaman

'The Killing' has a really great combination of qualities: Even though it's very sad and deals with mourning and grief, it's still exciting. It's about real people and it doesn't shy from the painful points of life.

Joel Kinnaman

I've hurt people unnecessarily when it was about my own insecurities. But you have to make those mistakes to become a better person.

Joel Kinnaman

I think for a lot of people that had seen me do 'Snabba Cash', after watching 'The Killing,' I think they got a sense that I could do different kinds of characters.

Joel Kinnaman

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.

Joel Kinnaman

I really want to live in New York. That's the city of my dreams.

Joel Kinnaman

My father is American and deserted the Vietnam War.

Joel Kinnaman

There's a lot of neuroscience now raising the question, 'Is all the intelligence in the human body in the brain?', and they're finding out that, no, it's not like that. The body has intelligence itself, and we're much more of an organic creature in that way.

Joel Kinnaman

The original 'RoboCop' was X-rated, and then they had to cut it down so it became R-rated, and Verhoeven claimed that actually made the movie more violent, because it's what you don't see that actually scares you.

Joel Kinnaman

Swedes are a really humble and shy people in many ways, but I think it's pretty much the same as in the U.S. Little girls want to take photographs with me at lunch.

Joel Kinnaman

I hate pork rinds. I couldn't imagine how anybody would ever get the idea of taking skin from a pig and frying it and then trying to sell it to people. And then people actually buy it to eat it. That is the true sign of the decline of the human race.

Joel Kinnaman

I don't think there have been many alien movies where the actors have actually seen the aliens.

Joel Kinnaman

We don't know why we are here and the context of our role in the universe, and the thought of an infinite universe. It's something the human mind can't really grasp. It's statistically impossible that there's not life on other planets.

Joel Kinnaman

It's technically demanding to shoot in 3-D. It's an extra element. Also, just the size of the cameras. They look like these 'Transformers' monsters; they are incredibly big, many of them.

Joel Kinnaman

I have a lot of funny friends, and we joke a lot, but I've never really played comedic parts.

Joel Kinnaman

I love 'Starship Troopers.' I've seen it ten times.

Joel Kinnaman

The north of Sweden is very socialist and poor. They feel left out and despise Stockholm in many ways because Stockholm has become new liberals and much more Americanized.

Joel Kinnaman

H&M makes it easy for a guy to look great every single day and create a personal style. Their men's collection always gives me a choice of how I want to dress, whether it be sharp in a suit and polo-neck, or more relaxed in jeans and a tweed jacket.

Joel Kinnaman

What we did wrong on 'RoboCop,' we just did something new and didn't really take into account what the fans really loved about the original.

Joel Kinnaman

My sister was an actress when I was a kid - she still is a successful stage actress in Sweden.

Joel Kinnaman