When the Swedish-American actor Joel Kinnaman first got accepted to drama school, he had such bad stage fright he would throw up every night and sometimes even black out on stage.
“My body was screaming ‘No!’, but I just couldn’t accept it,” the 36-year-old says in an interview with men’s online shop and lifestyle portal Mr Porter. “I was devastated. I thought I would have to stop.”
Image Credit: Blair Getz Mezibov for Mr Porter
Fast forward to a couple of years later and Kinnaman is now one of Hollywood’s rising stars. He will next be seen in the highly-anticipated antihero film Suicide Squad, playing the DC Comics character Rick Flag. He’s currently bulking up for Altered Carbon, one of Netflix’s biggest shows so far, an R-rated sci-fi series set 500 years in the future.
Image Credit: Blair Getz Mezibov for Mr Porter
The Mr Porter interview was done to announce the arrival of Ermenegildo Zegna on the website, and Kinnaman models some of the Italian luxury house’s latest looks for the accompanying photoshoot.
Image Credit: Blair Getz Mezibov for Mr Porter
But life wasn’t always glamorous. The actor, who made his breakthrough with the 2011 TV series The Killing and then starred as the lead in the 2014 RoboCop remake, dropped out of school when he was 16 and began a life of gangs and petty crime in his hometown in Stockholm.
“You know, hanging out and smoking weed. I had a lot of anger in me, and I was insecure. I was really skinny so I used to get bullied. So it felt good to bully other people... that made me feel stronger,” he says in the frank interview, detailing how he went from his tough life to the Stockholm Academy of Dramatic Arts and as one of Hollywood’s leading men.
Image Credit: Blair Getz Mezibov for Mr Porter
“Those years play into every role I’ve done, no exceptions,” he says. “It was so much about power, insecurity, dominance and vulnerability.”
For the full interview, go to morporter.com. Suicide Squad releases in the UAE on August 4.
