Joel Kinnaman found a new direction in his life when he stumbled upon his passion for acting. The Swedish-American actor, who keeps raising his goals, credits his willingness to "risk failures" for his success.
It was a whirlwind rise to fame for Kinnaman with his Swedish film "Easy Money", after which he made a mark in Hollywood with projects like "The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo" and "The Killing".
He further strengthened his position in the West with a reboot of "RoboCop" in 2014. At present, he is seen in sci-fi series "Alter Carbon", which went live on Netflix earlier this month.
"I would have never (imagined this)," Kinnaman told IANS of his success story.
"When I started acting, I was just so happy to find something I was passionate about. I found a direction.
"And my goals as an actor were -- I wanted to get into a theatre school, be an actor and work in the theatre and if I could get a part on a TV show or film, that would be amazing," Kinnaman said during a candid chat with IANS over phone from Los Angeles.
He took a brief pause to assess his career moves, and then spoke about them with the same passion and zeal with which he has advanced in his showbiz career.
"With each achievement, you get to a different level and form a new perspective. You keep raising your goals. In a way, I am really glad that I had the courage at certain points of my life to aim high and to take big risks because that is what got me here.
"I was willing to risk failure many times and took big risks, and that is what paid off. I did fail several times, but I continued to move forward."
His "RoboCop" was a hit, but fared low among critics. He has earned critical acclaim for his performance in "The Killing", "House of Cards" and "Suicide Squad".
The actor said it's important for him to find something new to do with every project.
"It becomes increasingly important to try to do things that I have never done before, to play characters that don't remind me of things that I have done before.
"And this ('Altered Carbon') was a huge challenge. It was the first time that I would be lead of a big action show. I have been lead of big action movie 'RoboCop', that was a big challenge, but I was in such a different place at that point. It was sort of my first big leading role in the US.
"When I got this opportunity, I was ready to be a leader in a very different way and I took it upon myself to be a leader on sets and to set the tone and make sure that the environment of production was a positive one for everyone. It was a big challenge in terms of leadership."
Based on the classic cyberpunk noir novel by Richard K. Morgan, "Altered Carbon" is an intriguing story of murder, love, sex, and betrayal, set over 300 years in the future.
It tells the story of a time when people live endlessly by transferring a digital version of their consciousness into a brand new body. The show is about one particular person -- an Envoy soldier called Takeshi Kovacs (played by Will Yun Lee) who has been revived after 250 years into the body of a police officer (Kinnaman). He is back to solve his murder mystery.
On the show, Kinnaman said: "The whole world and the ambition behind the production really drew me in. I have always been a fan of sci-fi and I have been always drawn to those kinds of movies, with 'Blade Runner' and 'RoboCop' being some of my favourite films."
(Sugandha Rawal can be contacted at sugandha.r@ians.in)
--IANS
sug/rb/vm
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