Top 60 Joel Kinnaman Quotes

I’m happy that people have watched and appreciated my work. That’s why I’m doing it.

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.

I’m a pretty good chess player.

We have nobility in Sweden, and it comes from the old British aristocracy.

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 speak English with my dad and Swedish with my mom; it’s quite schizophrenic.

I love watching Samuel L. Jackson do anything, but for me, Gary Oldman is the grandmaster of the game.

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.

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

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

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

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.

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.

I look at characters to see if they have some contrasts to play with; I think that’s always what I’m looking for in characters: ones that have a wide range of expression.

I’ve learned to steer away from the wrong kind of woman for me.

I’m a crybaby.

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

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

I feel like I’ve got the best job in the world. I just feel so fortunate to get paid to be a kid and play with my friends. So if it’s rough or a little bit hot, you just have to deal with 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.

Danish is a different language, even though Danish people understand Swedes, and very few Swedes understand Danish.

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

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.

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.

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.

Nobody wants to be depressed – everybody’s trying to feel better; when they strive and fail, it’s all the more poignant.

I was a Swedish guy who listened to Too Short.

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.

My parents got married when I was 12.

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

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.

A lot of the friends I had went on to become criminals.

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.’

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.

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.

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.

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.

Moving in is almost a bigger step than getting married.

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

My impression was, ‘This Hollywood thing doesn’t seem too hard.’

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.

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.

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!

‘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.

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 remake ‘Hamlet’ all the time. That’s sort of what we do, humans.

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.

We are all a unique person with everyone we meet.

Jose Padilha is a wonderful director.

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

I like L.A., but it’s just too many people in the same business everywhere you go. You lose perspective.

When I first heard ‘Robocop’ was going to be remade. I said, ‘Yeah, that’s interesting. I’ll probably watch that at some point, but I’m not interested at all to be in it.’

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.

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

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

I’m battling with keeping my narcissism at bay as it is, so Twitter was not a good thing for that.

I was on a Swedish soap opera when I was 10.

Mid-range to low-budget movies have to have a name in the lead to get financing for it.

I love ‘Starship Troopers.’ I’ve seen it ten times.