Peter Stormare Biography
Peter Stormare born Rolf Peter Ingvar Storm on 27 August 1953 , is a Swedish actor, voice actor, theatre director, playwright and musician active in the United States. He is known for his role as Gaear Grimsrud in the 1996 film Fargo, John Abruzzi in the Fox TV series Prison Break and Ingmar in the comedy web television series Swedish Dicks.
Peter Stormare Age
He was born on 27 August 1953. He is 65 years old as of 2018.
Peter Stormare Height
He is 1.89 metres tall.
Peter Stormare Family
The actor was born Rolf Peter Ingvar Storm on 27th August 1953 in Kumla, Sweden, and grew up in Arbrå. His is son to Gunhild Storm and Karl Ingvar Storm .
He changed his surname when he discovered that he shared it with a senior student at an acting academy. Like “storm” (a word which has the same meaning in Swedish and English), “stormare” is a Swedish word, meaning “stormer”. Before settling on “Stormare”, he briefly contemplated changing his name to “Retep Mrots”, which is simply “Peter Storm” backwards.
Peter Stormare Wife
He married actress Karen Sillas in 1989 and they divorced in 2006. He then married Toshimi, a native of Japan, in 2008. The couple have a daughter Kaiya Bella Luna Stormare, born on May 9, 2009. He has another daughter, Kelly Stormare, born March 1989.
Peter Stormare Career
He began his career with the Royal Dramatic Theatre, where he belonged for 11 years. He took a leading position as associate artistic director in 1992, at the Tokyo Globe Theatre, and made a name for himself through various Shakespeare performances, including Hamlet. He moved to New York City four years later, and mainly took part in English-language productions there.
He played the role of a fictional Swedish secret agent, Carl Hamilton. For his critically acclaimed role as one of the kidnappers in Fargo (1996), he was later discovered by international audiences. He played Dieter Stark in the film “The Lost World: Jurassic Park” in 1997 and later played sleazy, unlicensed “eye-doctor” Solomon Eddie in Minority Report.
He appeared in “The Frogger”, a Seinfeld episode where he played a rogue electrician known as Slippery Pete in 1998. In the 1998, he also portrayed Uli Kunkel film The Big Lebowski, as well as playing Lev Andropov, a Russian cosmonaut in the 1998 film Armageddon, where his unique performance cemented his status amongst top tier actors. He appeared as a villainous producer and director of hardcore porn in 1999, in the film 8mm.
He also portrayed Gunny in the 2002 film Windtalkers and Alexei in the 2003 film Bad Boys II. He played Ernst Röhm in Hitler: The Rise of Evil in 2003 . He played Lucifer, in the 2005 film Constantine. He played the torturer Cavaldi in the 2005 film The Brothers Grimm. His first major character in television was on the Fox series Prison Break in 2005 for the first two seasons, where he played the inmate mob boss John Abruzzi. Originally he was cast in Fido, but opted out of the film upon being cast in Prison Break.
He voiced Mattias Nilsson in the video games Mercenaries: Playground of Destruction and Mercenaries 2: World in Flames, Isair in the computer game Icewind Dale 2, and Johann Strauss in Quake 4. He starred as Wolfgang in Volkswagen’s VDub series of television commercials in February 2006. He played the main character in the film Svartvattnet, which was filmed in Sweden and Norway in 2007.
Peter Stormare Photo
He was offered a role in the ABC television series Lost for a period of one year, which he declined. He played Dr. Roth in the 2007 film Premonition. He appeared in the CSI: Crime Scene Investigation episode “Ending Happy” in April 2007. Stormare, in December 2007 participated in the Swedish reality show Stjärnorna på slottet. He appears in the video game Command & Conquer: Red Alert 3 as Dr. Zelinsky, a Russian scientist who builds a time machine.
In 2010, he starred as Walter in the Canadian independent crime thriller Small Town Murder Songs . He appeared in the music video of the song “Uprising” by the Swedish power metal band Sabaton. He starred as himself in the 2011 Norwegian comedy Hjelp, vi er i filmbransjen and appeared as a psychiatrist in the Swedish horror film Marianne in 2011. He appeared in a trailer for the video game Call of Duty: Black Ops II, made for the “Revolution” DLC pack. He has since reappeared in most trailers for the game.
Stormare appeared in 2014, in episodes of Longmire, Arrow, and The Blacklist. He also starred in the Eli Roth-produced film Clown, in the same year, in which he portrayed Karlsson. He played mob boss Frank O’Connell, in Rage directed by Paco Cabezas. He also voices Arach Jalal in the Destiny video game franchise.
Stormare voiced and motion captured the character Dr. Alan Hill, in 2015, in the video game Until Dawn. In 2016, he was cast as Rutger Burlin in the Swedish television series Midnattssol; he also co-created, and starred as Ingmar in, the web television series Swedish Dicks which was renewed for a second season in October 2016. In 2017, he played a minor role in John Wick: Chapter 2 and the part of Czernobog on the Starz series American Gods.
Peter Stormare Movies and TV shows
Movies
- 1978 Lyftet
- 1982 Fanny and Alexander
- 1986 Den frusna leoparden
- 1987 Pirates of the Lake
- 1990 Awakenings
- 1991 Freud flyttar hemifrån…
- 1991 Reflections in a Dark Sky
- 1992 Damage
- 1996 Fargo
- 1997 The Lost World: Jurassic Park
- 1998 Armageddon
- 1998 Mercury Rising
- 1998 The Big Lebowski
- 1998 Commander Hamilton
- 1998 Somewhere in the City
- 1999 Purgatory
- 1999 8mm
- 2000 Bruiser
- 2000 Chocolat
- 2000 Dancer in the Dark
- 2000 The Million Dollar Hotel
- 2000 Circus
- 2001 Happy Campers
- 2002 13 Moons
- 2002 The Beatle Fan
- 2002 Spun
- 2002 Minority Report
- 2002 Windtalkers
- 2002 The Tuxedo
- 2002 Bad Company
- 2003 Bad Boys II
- 2003 The Movie Hero
- 2004 Birth
- 2005 The Batman vs. Dracula
- 2005 The Brothers Grimm
- 2005 2001 Maniacs
- 2005 Buck Rogers to the Xtreme!
- 2005 Constantine
- 2006 Nacho Libre
- 2006 Unknown
- 2007 Premonition
- 2007 Anamorph
- 2007 Boot Camp
- 2007 They Never Found Her
- 2007 Switch
- 2007 Gone with the Woman
- 2008 Witless Protection
- 2008 Insanitarium
- 2008 Varg
- 2009 The Killing Room
- 2009 Horsemen
- 2009 The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus
- 2010 Corridor
- 2010 Moomins and the Comet Chase
- 2010 Undocumented
- 2010 Dylan Dog: Dead of Night
- 2010 Small Town Murder Songs
- 2010 Henry’s Crime
- 2011 Marianne
- 2011 Inseparable
- 2011 The Hunters 2
- 2011 Hjelp, vi er i filmbransjen
- 2012 Lockout
- 2012 Get the Gringo
- 2012 Small Apartments
- 2012 Tai Chi Hero
- 2013 Hansel and Gretel: Witch Hunters
- 2013 The Last Stand
- 2013 Siberian Education
- 2013 Autumn Blood
- 2013 Bad Milo!
- 2013 Trial of Arms
- 2013 Sleight of Hand
- 2013 The Pendant
- 2013 The Zero Theorem
- 2013 Pain & Gain
- 2014 22 Jump Street
- 2014 Rage
- 2014 Mall
- 2014 Penguins of Madagascar
- 2014 Bang Bang Baby
- 2014 The 11th Hour
- 2014 Clown
- 2015 Dark Summer
- 2015 Strange Magic
- 2015 Every Thing Will Be Fine
- 2016 Rupture
- 2016 King of the Dancehall
- 2017 John Wick: Chapter 2
- 2017 The Nut Job 2: Nutty by Nature
- 2017 VIP
- 2017 Dark Ascension
- 2017 Kill ‘Em All
- TBA The Poison Rose
Television shows
- 1984–88 Träpatronerna
- 1986 Seppan
- 1993 Morsarvet
- 1993 The Bacchae
- 1995 Screen Two
- 1996 Swift Justice
- 1997 In the Presence of a Clown
- 1998 Seinfeld
- 2002 Watching Ellie
- 2003 Hitler: The Rise of Evil
- 2004 Joey
- 2005–07 Prison Break
- 2007 CSI: Crime Scene Investigation
- 2008 Transformers: Animated
- 2008 Monk
- 2009 Entourage
- 2009 Tim and Eric Awesome Show, Great Job!
- 2010 Weeds
- 2010 Hawaii Five-0
- 2010 Adventure Time
- 2011 Ben 10: Ultimate Alien
- 2011 Covert Affairs
- 2011 Wilfred
- 2011 Leverage
- 2012 NCIS: Los Angeles
- 2012 Body of Proof
- 2013 Phineas and Ferb
- 2014 Psych
- 2014 Rake
- 2014 The Blacklist
- 2014–15 Arrow
- 2014–15 Manhattan
- 2014–17 Longmire
- 2015, 2017 Penn Zero: Part-Time Hero
- 2015 Graceland
- 2015–16 Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles
- 2016 Swedish Dicks
- 2016 Those Who Can’t
- 2016 Midnattssol
- 2017 Justice League Action
- 2017 American Gods
- 2017 Get Shorty (TV series)
- 2018 LA to Vegas
Peter Stormare Until Dawn
Peter Stormare Prison break
Peter Stormare 22 Jump Street
Peter Stormare Fargo
Peter Stormare Jurassic Park
Peter Stormare Twitter
Tweets by TheStormare
Peter Stormare Instagram
Peter Stormare Interview – Video
News | Interview
Swedish Dicks’ Peter Stormare on Working with Bergman, How to Tell If Your Cat Is Poisoning You, and More
Updated On: 26th July 2018
Source: pastemagazine.com
Peter Stormare is so much more than “that guy from Fargo” or “that guy from Armageddon.” The Swedish actor, writer, and director has trailblazed his own particular brand of colorful weirdos that populate indies and tentpoles alike with their utterly convincing eccentricity. In his first series as creator, the Pop TV comedy Swedish Dicks, the perennial scene-stealer finally has the soapbox to tell the stories he wants the way he wants.
The private detective show (starring Stormare alongside Johan Glans) doesn’t hold your hand, delights in thumbing its nose at the genre’s conventions, and saturates its offbeat comedy with issues truly important to its creator’s heart.
Stormare chatted with Paste about the series’ second season, and things got pretty serious pretty fast. The multi-hyphenate ended up talking about Keanu Reeves and Swedish Dicks, sure, but he also dove deep on immigration, directing, and the pharmaceutical drama he’s been trying to get made. Now, obey Peter Stormare and register to vote! [Editor’s note: The following interview has been edited for length and clarity.]
Paste: The show started off as a passion project—did getting a second season alter that at all?
Peter Stormare: We wanted to touch on Axel’s problem with illegal immigration. [Axel is the former DJ, played by Glans, who becomes P.I. partners with Stormare’s character.] It was something I was adamant about bringing to the table.
Paste: You were so prescient about this issue, being in production last year.
Stormare: I always found that interesting as an immigrant myself. It took me so many tries to become a citizen. I got my green card in 1989. I applied to become a citizen and they made me come in and answer questions about the first 13 states. Then they asked me if I’ve ever voted.
“No. No.” “But we have some information that you signed a petition to join the Democratic Party.” “Yeah, I might have.”
That’s because they had someone outside every K-Mart when I lived in New York. They get 10 cents a signature. I’m sure I signed up for Republicans and Democrats. They said, “Go back and prove you didn’t vote.” I had to hire a lawyer to go into the election archives to prove my name wasn’t in there, because if it was, I couldn’t become a citizen. So it took me nine years to become a citizen. Everyone that’ve been here, working, living as Americans—just give them a green card.
Paste: Was couching it in comedy due to a desire to point out hypocrisy?
Stormare: No, no. It’s just so important to me.
If I ran for President, the first thing I’d do is legalize everyone who’s been here paying taxes, working, paying taxes. Mothers and fathers of kids born in the U.S. should get a green card. You’re ripping off the system? You should be deported—like happens in every other country. But I suppose we do dip into satire a bit. We did try to go a little
Paste: Including immigration commentary was obviously an important part of Season Two. Were there any other goals you aimed for after learning what it was like to make a season of TV?
Stormare: We tried to be diverse. I wanted a black daughter. I wanted to have a really good black young actress because we’re bringing her mother back in Season Three.
Paste: The twist!
Stormare: The mother tried to kill me because I was unfaithful, so she shot me in the back. She’s been spending her life in jail and I never told my daughter. [I] told her she died in a car accident.
Paste: Has she been cast yet?
Stormare: We have a dream: Angela Bassett. So we have to start pestering her with emails and love letters.
Anyways, Season Two… This country’s full of private detectives, stories like this. My two friends I based the series on, the stories they tell me are mostly surveillance, but sometimes they’re crazy stories about crazy people. Of course, they live off crazy clients—you can’t deny the money. Like, if a client comes in and says, “My cat is poisoning me,” you have to disprove that.
Paste: Wait, is that real?
Stormare: Yeah! There had to be something wrong in that guy’s head, but if he pays you $5,000, you do the job.
Paste: How do you prove a cat isn’t poisoning someone?
Stormare: You set up cameras. You take photos. And then you show that the food in the refrigerator was never touched by the cat.
Paste: Did this season lift any stories from their lives?
Stormare: Yeah, a couple of stories.
Paste: Was one about the Hollywood Boulevard costume hustlers?
Stormare: Yeah. I live a couple blocks away and there are fights between them sometimes. You can’t do that now, it’s been in the 100s and they’ve been on the street sweating their lives away. I want to see one take off his head and say “Fuck this shit, I need water.” And the kids, they’ll freak out.
Paste: I do love how the series loves and cares for its losers.
Stormare: Let the characters carry the story. Let the audience be one step behind instead of two steps ahead like most American shows. Your NCSI: Miami, New York, Los Angeles [sic]…
Paste: Pretty formulaic.
Stormare: You just know. “It’s him, you idiots.”
Paste: How do you prevent that when writing?
Stormare: I’m the last one to scrutinize everything. “Out, out, out. Simplify.” Let the audience guess. Take the exposition out. It’s American writing. It’s a disease. Write one line instead of five.
You had quite a successful thing, The Last Man on Earth. The first season was really, really good. I think it lost a little when he shaved half his beard. It had some Twin Peaks, you were a little bit behind and drawn in by the characters. You wanted to know more. Mostly, in this country, they’re choking you with information.
Paste: Is that mindset something you brought to directing your first episode of TV this season?
Stormare: Definitely. I’m gonna do three next season.
Keanu Reeves [who guest stars as Tex on the series] is directing one next season.
You know, I started as a director very young and fell into acting. I had to take over a part from our lead. Then people said, “Fuck, you’re a great actor. You should do more acting.” For a while, I was doing both, directing and acting. Sometimes the lead actor got too drunk and fell in the shower. It happened a couple times.
Paste: What was the play that transitioned you from director to actor?
Stormare: You won’t know it, but it was a big, big Swedish novel that I adapted for the stage and the lead fell out. I was called into a meeting by [then Royal Dramatic Theatre managing director] Ingmar Bergman, who was my mentor. He said, “We have some bad news. Mr. X fell in the bathroom while taking a shower—”
Paste: This was one of the drunk times?
Stormare: Yeah [laughs] or he walked into a doorjamb. But he said, “Opening night is tomorrow. He’s gonna be out for a few weeks.” I asked, “Do we have a list? I can start to look for a replacement.” They’re staring at me. Bergman said, “There’s only one candidate. I’m looking at you, kid.” “Oh, fuck, I can’t. He’s in every fucking scene for four hours.”
So I did opening night and got rave reviews. The play as a whole, maybe got looked at as second place, but I got rave reviews.
Paste: Did you believe all of it?
Stormare: No, but I believed Bergman—my mentor, my surrogate father, because my parents lived in Africa. He said to me, “Jesus Christ, I always knew you were a hell of an actor, but you beat me as a director, you fuck. You’re a dangerous kid.” He was my best friend for many, many years until he passed away.
Paste: It has to be hard to go back after you hear that from one of the greats.
Stormare: I was offered a part on Broadway to be in King Lear as the Earl of Gloucester. I said, “Jesus, I was 30 years old when I did Gloucester with Bergman in leotards.” You can’t have old people around King Lear, they have to be young vampires that want to suck blood. I did it 400 times around the world. To do it again for a director I don’t even know? I can’t.
Paste: Is there a Shakespearean role you’d go back for?
Stormare: It’s very hard for me to work with… what should I say… someone who’s a worst director than me. It’s hard for me to do theater after working with Bergman. I’ve done a couple of plays and… they’re not talented. They bring people over from England all the time and think they’re related to the Bard. Like they know everything. This country, everyone bows down to the English.
Paste: Americans will do anything for a British accent.
Stormare: Exactly. [Affects a posh accent] Oh, you need to stand over here. Then you come in over here and sit down over there. Incredible direction. [Returns to normal accent] I worked for a couple in New York and Je-sus…. [After a lengthy tangent about the various healthcare systems around the world] I have a series called The Medicine Man that nobody wants to touch, about people in the medical industry—workers on the floor—who’re stealing drugs and making drugs in the labs, then putting them in their pockets like you work in a candy factory. In pharmaceutical corners, they have a nickname for those people: The Medicine Man. They do their own drugs on the side, selling it. It’s a big industry where pharmaceutical companies try to nail them but they’re pretty lenient.
Paste: You have a pilot written for this?
Stormare: Yeah, but they say, “You can do a documentary.” But to have a series go up on a major network? They’re very reluctant. Because as soon as they announce it, there’ll be lawsuits. I’m gonna continue to fight for it, but we were really close with DreamWorks two years ago. But they said it was too risky. One day, we’ll do it in Europe for a fraction of the money, in Lithuania or something. Set it in another country, a fictional U.S.A.
Paste: To change directions, I have to mention Until Dawn, which is one of my favorite video games—partially due to your acting.
Stormare: I’ve seen snippets friends send to me where my face is all morphed and weird. [Laughs]. It made quite an impact.
Paste: Do you have any final words for people watching Swedish Dicks and thinking about immigration?
Stormare: People who are registered to vote should vote. I vote all the time. If I’m not in the country, I do it over mail. Sometimes I don’t know who the people are—I just pick whatever girl is Democratic.
Get off from the couch. You should watch Swedish Dicks, but then get off the couch and do something.
Paste: And go change the world.
Stormare: Yes, go change the world!