30 Amazing Facts About Joel Kinnaman You Might Have Missed Before

Joel Kinnaman, with his stunning physique and uniquely mixed accent, has millions of fans all over the world, with many youngsters taking him as an inspiration. Apart from his acting career, he is also an avid traveler, with plans to visit every nook and corner of the world. Here are some really interesting facts about the actor, that will make you love him more:

"Joel Kinnaman" by Gage Skidmore is licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0

1.  He played Rick Flag in the Warner Bros. and DC Comics adaptation of “Suicide Squad,” directed by David Ayer, in the year 2016. He will be reprising his role in the 2021 James Gunn’s movie “The Suicide Squad.”
2.  He was featured in a non-speaking role, a little more than extra, - as the character Christer Malm, in the 2011 movie “The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo.”
3.  He accepted the role, because the character has an important role in the 2nd and 3rd films of the franchise. He assumed that the 2nd and 3rd parts of the movie will be produced, if the first movie was a success.
4.  He grew up with the congenital deformity known as Pectus Excavatum which produces a sunken or caved in appearance of the chest. He had always been embarrassed to take off his shirt.
5.  However, when he landed the lead role of Takeshi Kovacs in the TV series “Altered Carbon” he underwent surgery to repair his chest and lift it outwards to have a normal shape.
6.  Charles Joel Nordström Kinnaman was born on November 25, 1979, to Steve Kinnaman (originally David Kinnaman) and Bitte Kinnaman, in Stockholm, Sweden.
7.  His father is an American who was drafted during the Vietnam War and deserted the military from his base in Bangkok, while his mother is a therapist.
8.  His father was from the American Midwest, of Irish and Scottish descent, while his mother is a Jewish of Ukrainian Jewish descent.
9.  Joel has five sisters, one of whom is an actress Melinda Kinnaman, famous for her role in leading role of Inger Johanne Vik, a criminal psychologist in “Modus.”
10.  Since his childhood, he was fluent in English as well as Swedish, as he used to converse with his father in English, and with his mother in Swedish.

"144758_T7I4159" by Walt Disney Television is licensed under CC BY-ND 2.0

11.  He spent a year in Del Valle, Texas, as a high school exchange student. But, just after high school, he took to his decision to travel around the world.
12.  He travelled for four to five months at a time, in a period of two years in Southeast Asia and South America. He had travelled through South America with fellow Scandinavian actor David Dencik.
13.  In order to get finance for his trips, he worked in various jobs, such as a beer factory line worker and roof-sweeper in Norway, and as a bar manager in the French Alps.
14.  He started of his acting career as a child actor, with his role as Felix Lundström in the Swedish soap opera “Storstad” for 22 episodes.
15.  He was asked to audition for the part on the show by one of the show’s director, who was dating his older sister at that time. Following this role, he stepped away from acting.
16.  It was in the year 2002, he restarted his acting career, during his time at the drama school, where he was part of several films such as “Hannah med H” and “God Save the King.”
17.  In the year 2007, Kinnaman graduated from Malmö Theatre Academy and started working at the Gothenburg City Theatre.
18.  With his role as Raskolnikov in a stage adaptation of “Crime and Punishment,” he garnered the attention of Swedish media, as well as offers to star in various movies.
19.  He stared in a total of nine Swedish movies, in a very short span of 14 months, in the year 2009. Among this is the role of Johan "JW" Westlund in “Easy Money.”
20.  His performance in this movie, earned him recognition at the international market, as well as the Guldbagge Award in the Best Actor category.

"Joel Kinnaman" by Gage Skidmore is licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0

21.  For his role as Errol in the 2015 movie “Knight of Cups,” the director Terrence Malick wrote him a seventeen page monologue, although the movie never used a script.
22.  However, he claimed in an interview later that the given script was utterly worthless, and that he had to hire three acting coaches just to decipher what was on the script.
23.  Working on the movie was not a pleasant experience for him, as even after working for three weeks on the script, it was very difficult as there was no background information.
24.  It was said that during the filming of the movie, his fellow actor Christian Bale just walked off when Kinnaman was about to deliver his dialogue with him, shaming him in front of two hundred extras. He said that he had never felt so embarrassed in his entire life.
25.  Kinnaman had been in a serious relationship with actress Olivia Munn for more than 2 years, since 2012. It was reported that Munn even flew to Sweden to meet his parents, but the duo broke up in 2014.
26.  He met Swedish tattoo artist Cleo Wattenstrom in early 2014, and started dating her. The couple got married in 2015 in extremely private ceremony, but separated in 2018.
27.  In the year 2019, he started dating Swedish-Australian model Kelly Gale, and made their red carpet debut as a couple. In January 2021, he proposed to Gale and publicly revealed their engagement through his Instagram account.
28.  In preparation for his role as Takeshi Kovacs in the “Altered Carbon,” he trained for 3 to 5 hours every day for 6 months, even before filming started. He was also working on various martial art routines to perfect his action sequences in the movie.
29.  During the filming of the TV series, he had to undergo 90 minutes of make-up every morning to cover up all his body tattoos, especially because, he had to appear shirtless in almost every episode.
30.  In fact, his shirtless physique was used as one of the focal points to market the show, as all stills, trailers and clips released included shots of Kinnaman.
31.  Joel Kinnaman Net Worth: $14 Million