Joel Kinnaman,
Adrift

Snabba Cash gave him a Guldbagge (Swedish movie award), respect on the street and a golden ticket to the dream factory. Joel Kinnaman lives the dream. King’s Rebecca Åhlund meets the Hollywood favorite to talk about his entourage-life, the very hyped sequel to Snabba Cash and his 32 years in daily therapy.

When we met for the first time, Joel had just eaten five hard-boiled eggs. In a freaking hot studio in Hammarby sjöstad, with the autumn sun sipping through the window he was photographed for KING Magazine. He’s sitting on a high stool while the assistant is holding up an umbrella to keep back the sunlight. Joel looks patient. He’s relaxed, pleased and not at all sweaty, even tho he is wearing a much to hot designer suit. The reason for the photo shoot, and this article, is first and foremost the Sweden-premiere of The Darkest Hour, an american sci fi-movie with Joel in a supporting role as a Swedish, mean businessman in the middle of an alien invasion. 

- It’s no carrying role, but I wanted to work with Emilie Hirsch and Olivia Thirlby, because I like what they’ve done before. I mostly just walk around being scared and too afraid to do anything. It’s interesting to see how people like him react in a disaster situation. My character is constantly panicked during the entire movie. 

When the photo shoot is done, we leave the studio in a Audi A7 where you basically have to lie down. While on the road we listen a Lil Wayne song about pussy, money and weed. Five hard boiled eggs apparently didn’t get Joel very far. While in the restaurant the staff quickly switch from very nice to extremely nice when they realize it’s JW from Snabba Cash that wants to order fish and a Loka (sparkly water) for lunch. We sit down, put our phones on the table (they’re on mute of course) and Joel stick a piece of nicotine chewing gum on the table. He had just stopped smoking.

- There’s no point in have an addiction that’s only about suppressing abstinence. I seem to miss that “addiction-gene”, I mean, I’ve been a bartender and even if I’ve been drinking a lot for longer periods I’ve always been able to stop. It’s never been difficult to break bad habits for me.

When we meet, he has a couple of days off from the filming of Snabba Cash II. The new movie is directed by Babak Najafi, who’ve previously directed the Guldbagge-winning movie Sebbe. The first Snabba Cash movie didn’t exactly follow the first book, and the second movie won’t follow the second book (Aldrig fucka upp. Eng: “Never fuck up”) either. Joel describes the new movie as harder. More violence, the character go trough harder stuff and the desperation grows stronger.

Poor JW, you can’t help liking that character. 

- Yeah, he is very sympathetic. He’s missing so much in himself and he has such bad self esteem and a lot of unhealed wounds. That makes him do all kinds of stuff…But he has a good heart. 

That’s exactly what if thought about your other characters. They’ve been kind of sketchy but they’ve always had a good heart.

- I don’t like to divide good and evil. No one is born evil, it’s dangerous to go around demonizing people. Bad actions get worse if you see that it’s a good person who acted on them.

JW didn’t just give him a Guldbagge for best male role, more friend requests on facebook and hotter party invitations, but also a ticket to Hollywood and what looks like a beaming acting career. He has already acted in several movies in USA, and a large role in the tv-series The Killing. 

Snabba Cash changed your life, you could say. What’s the biggest difference from two years ago? 

- It’s a lot more unstructured now. I have my apartment in Stockholm, but when I’m finished with this movie I’m going back to USA. I don’t live anywhere. And it’s a lot bigger there, of course. In Sweden you film in houses, that are already there, but in america they can spend weeks building a city or prepare for a single fight scene. It’s different in Sweden and with Snabba Cash. No fuss, just a small team working together, like a family.

Are you abandoning Sweden after this?

- Absolutely not. My plan is to keep my apartment here, and come back to Sweden for a couple of months every year.