Joel's News Articles, Photoshoots and Interviews, 2018

[ohva]

[ohva]

Feb 20, 2018 20:07:59 GMT -5 ohva said:

www.hollywoodreporter.com/live-feed/altered-carbon-star-joel-kinnaman-wont-rule-season-2-return-1086500?utm_source=twitter&utm_source=t.co&utm_medium=referral

'Altered Carbon': Joel Kinnaman Won't Rule Out Season 2 Return



[This story contains spoilers from season one of Netflix's Altered Carbon.]

Takeshi Kovacs has moved onto a new sleeve. Joel Kinnaman has moved onto Hanna. But has Altered Carbon moved on from Kinnaman? Not necessarily, according to the actor.

Speaking with The Hollywood Reporter in the aftermath of news that he won't return for a second season of the Netflix sci-fi drama, Kinnaman isn't ready to officially say goodbye to the franchise. "I can't confirm that. We don't know anything about the second season," he says when asked about his forthcoming exit from the series.

To be clear, sources told THR that Kinnaman signed a one-year deal to star in Altered Carbon, which technically has yet to be officially renewed for a second season at the streaming giant. (Reviews were largely favorable, and the show managed to break through a cluttered landscape that's rapidly approaching 500 scripted originals.) The actor has already signed on to star in an ongoing series (Hanna) for Netflix rival Amazon, which would also likely rule out Kinnaman returning to Altered Carbon as a series regular in a likely second season.

The first season of Altered Carbon, an adaptation of the Richard K. Morgan novel of the same name from creator and showrunner Laeta Kalogridis, ends with protagonist Takeshi Kovacs leaving his life in Bay City behind for new adventures. As he leaves, he walks off in a new sleeve (or body), strongly indicating that Kinnaman's work in the series is at an end. In the sequel novel to Altered Carbon, called Broken Angels, the action picks up decades into the future, far away from Earth, as Kovacs embarks on a new mission with a brand-new sleeve. Should the series follow suit in season two, which remains unconfirmed by Netflix at this point, all signs point toward the resolution of Kinnaman's work in Altered Carbon — especially since he only signed a one-year deal to star.

For his part, Kinnaman acknowledges that he approached Kovacs with the understanding that his time as the character wouldn't last beyond a single season, but offers an asterisk: "I don't know what's going to happen. No one does, really. Season two hasn't been picked up yet, so who knows?"

"If it was a cool story, for sure," he added when asked if he would want to continue on as Takeshi Kovacs. "I loved making this show. I had a great experience. The feedback has been fantastic. But I have no idea what's going on with the second season."

Over the course of the show's first and currently only 10 episodes, Kovacs undergoes an intense amount of physical and emotional trauma. He suffers relentless abuse in combat, brutally beaten in a fighting arena while succumbing to poison at one point. He's ruthlessly interrogated in a virtual realm, with methods so severe that his legs are sawed off and his body is burned alive, just as two examples. The final act of the season centers on Kovacs identifying the person responsible for the crimes he's been investigating: none other than his own sister Reileen (Dichen Lachman), long thought dead, now revealed as a centuries-old psychopath. It's little wonder why Kovacs walks away from his Kinnaman-fueled sleeve by the end of the season; one wonders why he would return to it.

If nothing else, a second season of Altered Carbon for Kinnaman would have to wait until he's finished with his current assignment: filming Amazon's TV adaptation of Hanna, the 2011 action movie from director Joe Wright, starring Saoirse Ronan. Kinnaman will star in the series as Erik, a mercenary who raises his genetically engineered daughter (Esme Creed-Miles) in the wilderness in order to keep her safe. The project marks a reunion between Kinnaman and Mireille Enos, his co-star on the AMC-turned-Netflix drama The Killing.

Below, Kinnaman speaks with THR about his work on Altered Carbon, how his collaboration with Will Smith on Suicide Squad informed his work on the set of the Netflix series, the lasting life lessons he gleaned from playing Takeshi Kovacs, his hopes for Hanna and more.

In approaching the complicated world of Altered Carbon, what was your entry point into the show's universe and the character of Kovacs, specifically?

There's a lot of sci-fi stuff to wrap your head around, but when you're preparing for the character, you have to strip all of that away. You have to peel the layers of the onion until you get down to the real heart of the character. It's a person that is constantly dealing with loss and has made himself numb to that feeling, and therefore doesn't care about anyone. He won't allow himself to feel things for other people. Throughout his whole life, everyone who has ever mattered to him has been taken away from him. That's the problem for Kovacs, in this period of his life. He's confronted with a situation where he once again has nobody in his life who matters. Everyone he loves is dead. All of the sudden, these new people he's using for his own gain start meaning something to him. That's something he wants to avoid at all costs. I tried to dig down into that.

There's not so much you can do with him being an Envoy and part of the rebellion. It was more about boiling down to his human qualities. He's a man who was never allowed to be a boy. To me, that means he'll always be a boy in some way. He's someone who has raised himself. He's done a lot of things that are very awful. It's someone who carries a lot of self-loathing. To me, when I play a person who is often sarcastic and doesn't want to engage in the world, and doesn't want to show any emotion, or doesn't want to show people that he feels anything…to me, those are markers that this is a person who has actually been really hurt, and is trying to keep those emotions away.

Was your approach to playing Kovacs markedly different from how you would normally approach a character, since you're playing just the latest in a long line of bodies for Takeshi Kovacs? How did you tackle the physicality?

It was a tricky thing. Usually the way I work is I often work on the physical body language, the tension. That's usually where my imagination takes me when I start building a character. I start by thinking, is this a confident person? Where in the body is the tension of this person? If the tension is in the shoulders, does it make the head come forward? Maybe he looks at other people like this, a little bit hunched over from the side, so he's actually a little shy, but he's also aggressive. All of that, the physical life, starts to feed into the emotional life. Here, there's so many layers to that, that it was almost hard to decipher. You're someone with a physical inclination about how you normally feel in a body, and then all of the sudden you're put into another body. That body has physical memories that are affecting you. It suddenly becomes very freeing. You're freed up to do pretty much whatever you want. I saw him as a person who carried a lot of sadness, but was also very physically able. I made him a little hunched over, but at the same time, strong. I looked at a lot of big cats.

Good call. Kovacs is definitely a cat person more than a dog person.

For sure. (Laughs.) I was looking at a lot of lions and tigers. They're very relaxed. If you look at them, they almost look a little sad. Almost like they don't care about anything. It's very powerful. When something happens and they need to be active, they react very quickly and can be very dangerous. That's how I was looking at it.

Did you collaborate with Will Yun Lee on creating Kovacs, since he's playing his original sleeve?

Will came in right at the tail end [of production]. He was prepping to get ready to shoot right as I was wrapping up. They showed him footage of what we had shot. He asked if there were any physical mannerisms I was doing that he could pick up on. We found a couple of things that he could do, so we could create a common thread. He did an amazing job. A really great performance.

You trained hard for the action scenes, learning martial arts, for instance. How much has that training stuck with you since walking away from the role?

It was one of the big gifts that came with this project and this job: digging into the action part of it, and the martial arts. It's become a big part of my life now. It became part of something I was already doing, in a sense. I've realized I'm always happiest in life when I'm working on a role, because then your whole life is seen through this filter, through the curiosity of a new role, and trying to get as much information about a role as you can — always learning new things. When I didn't have a role to work on, when I was in between jobs, I would feel like I had much less purpose. I would feel a little empty in a way. Now, after finding martial arts…it's something I had found even before that, really, that I should always be learning something new. Different hobbies. The process makes me feel good. Now, martial arts has just been the perfect thing. I've been training a lot since I shot Altered Carbon. It's remained a part of my life since then.

Which action scene was the most physically demanding?

Probably the one in episode six, at Fight Drome. It was really tough to shoot. The physical conditions…we were shooting in a big garage with 250 extras and really bad air. The ground was sand, so it was so dusty. The air quality was so bad. At the same time, it was super physically demanding. I also had to play injured in a way where I was getting paralyzed while I was fighting. There was a lot of tension in it. It was a big, long fight sequence with a lot of intricate moves. We shot it over the course of four or five days. One of our stunt guys tore ligaments in both of his knees. We needed another guy to play him. It was a really tough shoot. Purely physically, I think that was the toughest one.

What was the last scene you filmed for the series?

The last scene… (Pauses.) It was Head in the Clouds. We were filming the Head in the Clouds crashing into the ocean.

What do you remember about the day, as you were wrapping your work on Altered Carbon?

It was a special day. It was a really special day. One of the big challenges for me in this job…when I worked on Suicide Squad, I became friends with Will Smith, and I was so deeply impressed with the amount of energy he puts into creating a good environment for everyone on set, and how much his energy was based on generosity and giving people a good experience. It was something that I really respected. I love myself the most when I'm in that mind space, when I'm generous. It was so great to see someone on that level using their power to do good in that way. My relationship with Will really reinforced some of those ambitions that I had when it came to being a good leader and being a force for good in your community and work environment. With Altered Carbon, it was my first real lead role after [Suicide Squad], and I looked at it as an opportunity to really try that. Not in the way Will does it, because he's been doing it for 20 years; he's a very old man now. (Laughs.) But he's been doing it for a long time.

Before I went up to Vancouver to shoot, I went to see Will, and we sat down and had a conversation over maybe three or four hours about leadership. That was a big ambition that I had with this project. I put a lot of effort into it. I don't want to come off as bragging, but it was something I was really proud of. After we wrapped, I've never gotten this kind of response before from a crew. Several crewmembers told me I had contributed to making it a happy period of their life. To me, it really reinforced the idea that when you see someone do good like Will does, it inspired me to do good. I saw what he did on Suicide Squad, and you would see crewmembers who were happy to come to work. Of course they were tired, but they would be happy when they went home. Their kids would have a parent who would come home happy from work. It's all about sending those positive ripples out into the world. That's what I'm most proud of with Altered Carbon.

You're moving from Altered Carbon into Hanna for Amazon. What can you say about the project, which reunites you with Enos?

I loved the movie. My favorite part was the relationship between the father and daughter. The series version has an even greater focus on that. Just that idea of parenthood, and how there are so many layers…I'm so compelled by a person who takes their child, and to save it, he goes out into the woods and raises it in solitude for 14 years. To both be surviving in the woods with a child, and also raising that child in the wilderness — what that does to your mind and your connection to your child and your connection to the world — I think it's really fascinating. Add in the fact that she's a genetic experiment with incredible abilities? It's such an incredible idea. It's a family drama wrapped into this very high-concept idea, while it's also a coming-of-age and coming-into-the-world story. I can't wait to dive in. And then getting to play with Mireille again? That was a huge factor for me. I'm so excited about that. She's one of my favorite people in the world, and she's also one of my favorite actors in the world to watch and to play with. I'm so excited. I can't wait.

I'm bouncing this interview from the prior page because I wanted to make a point of Joel's comments about being a positive force on set. Through the years of following him, this is something mentioned about him in just about everything where he's been a lead. I read and heard about numerous reports of him on-set during The Killing, always being attentive and noticing everything and everyone. David Ayer said he usually found the Suicide Squad cast at Joel's trailer. There is almost always an Instagram post after a movie of something kind that he did for the crew. In the case of Edge of Winter, filmed in bitter cold, everyone got a bottle of expensive whiskey. I've always joked that Joel isn't one of the elite, he's a 'townie'. I mean that in the best sense about him.

https://www.instagram.com/p/Bfg8UYFhmAy

mattbiedel: "Just a great dude through and through.
It was such a blast working with @joelkinnaman. On a show this big, everything starts at the top and this is exactly the kind of actor you want up there to set the tone. @altcarb @netflix @skydance #alteredcarbon #takeshikovacs #thoseabstho"

[ohva]

Here's Matt in his Altered Carbon look, in case you didn't recognize him.

https://www.instagram.com/p/Bfbnl5QhwQI

[wanderingstar78]

Feb 22, 2018 13:02:19 GMT -5 ohva said:

I laughed way too hard every time his score dropped!

[wanderingstar78]

Feb 22, 2018 19:15:49 GMT -5 ohva said:

Here's Matt in his Altered Carbon look, in case you didn't recognize him.

https://www.instagram.com/p/Bfbnl5QhwQI

Grandma! He was also one of the highlights of the season!

[ohva]

It appears Princess Estelle is a Lily's Burger fan. Now I want a good milkshake too!! As you know, Joel is a co-owner of Lily's Burger.

https://www.instagram.com/p/Bfi1yR0l_1N

GOOGLE TRANSLATE:
lilysburger: Grattis Princess Estelle who is 6 years old today, come by again and we invite Milkshake❤️😀 @kungahuset


“@kungahuset” is the Swedish royal family’s Instagram, if you'd like to follow.

[ohva]

I put this in the wrong thread. Should have been in candids! Oh well.

[ohva]

One thing about Joel. He never lets you sit and savor on his latest work. He's always off to the next project.

Just a note–it looks like they got the siblings wrong, as usual with these articles (4 sisters and a brother). Unless Joel changed his story, when he’s good at doing. Joel has one full sister (Sandra), and a half-sister (Melinda, the actress). My understanding is hIs other three sisters are the half-siblings of Melinda and not his biologic sisters, but they were all pretty much raised together and he always refers to all of them as his sisters. In all the years of my following him, he’s never had a ‘brother’.


www.rollingstone.com/tv/features/joel-kinnaman-interview-altered-carbon-suicide-squad-w516840

How Joel Kinnaman Became a Sci-Fi TV Star (and Lived to Tell About It)

After starting out as the "cool hip-hop kid" in Sweden, the actor's latest break is in Netflix's dystopian series 'Altered Carbon'




In the first episode of Altered Carbon, Netflix's bid for a big, dystopic sci-fi-blockbuster series, Takeshi Kovacs, played by Swedish-American actor Joel Kinnaman, drops to the floor, his naked body oozing out of body bag full of gelatinous preservatives that have kept this new corpus intact. With a fit of gag-inducing gurgles and coughs, he pulls from his throat an endoscopic feeding tube. Disorientation and paranoia soon set in and he lunges after his lab-coat wearing overlords in search of a fragment of mirror to see his face, and someone to explain to him when it is, why he's here, and what, exactly, happens to him now. It turns out, Kovacs' consciousness has been "imprisoned" for the past 250 years, yet he still possesses superhuman fighting abilities.

In the year 2384, bodies are skins, or "sleeves," that are mere vessels for cortical "stacks" that contain the self in a kind of stone-shaped glowing hard drive that looks as if you could skip it across a lake with a perfect throw. The problem of death has been solved, as long as you can continue to find new sleeves (a.k.a., bodies) to animate the stack that makes you, you. In other words, the human body has basically become a protective OtterBox for your iPhone's SIM card, but way more expensive. Damage the stack implanted at the base of your cortex and you're toast, sleeve or no sleeve. Call it an Achilles' neck, if you will, but even when death is solved, drama still demands its possibility, or why keep watching?

What ties all of this neon wilderness to the present day is the idea that if or when we can achieve a kind of immortality, only a tiny population of the world's most wealthy individuals will be able to afford it. This, as it turns out, is what drew Kinnaman to the show.

"That was the part of the story that really spoke to me," Kinnaman says. "We see the extreme exaggeration of that trend of [income inequality] that we're already seeing now, so devastatingly, with 80 percent of the world living in poverty. This generation of Americans is the first one projected to live shorter lives than their parents. At the same time, the wealthiest among us are projected to live longer than any humans have ever lived before. We're already seeing these advances in technology and healthcare that have the potential to do so much good, but they're only doing good for the richest segment. In some respect, you can almost say that rich people have become a different species."

Kinnaman is wealthy at this point in his career, but it doesn't define him. His father and mother were not much interested in the creature comforts of a secure job and sound every bit the global vagabonds their own son has become. When his father fled the Vietnam War for Sweden and met his future wife, Kinnaman's mother, their family didn't have much. Kinnaman has four sisters and a half-brother.

When it's suggested he wasn't born with that elusive silver spoon dangling from his infant hand, Kinnaman laughs. "Why would you say that? You don't think I talk sophisticated?" But he agrees, explaining that his parents never focused on a career. "They weren't careerists in any way," he explains. "I don't think they were really interested in material wealth. Their focus was always the family. We got by. There was never anything really lacking, but there was never anything extra. There was food on the table, but if I wanted some new clothes, I had to make my own money to get them."

He describes his education at an English school in Stockholm as a weird time, where he would move in and out of different circles of friends, get into a trouble, not quite fit in anywhere, and brood. His father suggested a year abroad, just to get away, regroup, and see some of the world

"I did have a really strange year. I was getting into a lot of trouble back home in Stockholm. My whole group of friends, when I tried to leave them, they turned on me. Then, all of my new friends, as soon as they ran into any of my old friends, then my old friends would beat up my new friends and rob them. They would leave me unscathed, just to really rub it in. Then, no one wanted to be my friend. It was a very lonely time.

"It was a period of a lot of anxiety and I developed this weird eating disorder," Kinnaman continues. "I was not feeling very good. So, we came up with this idea that I could go be an exchange student for a year."

As with nearly everything Kinnaman describes, he appears equally as interested and grateful for the awfulness of something as he does his own personal triumphs. He'd hoped to be placed somewhere in California, with Oregon a close second. Instead, he got Hell Valley, Texas, a suburb of Austin. (Later, he found out it was actually called Del Valle, but "hell" is all about perspective, so what's in a name?)



Joel Kinnaman plays Takeshi Kovacs in Netflix's first season of 'Altered Carbon.' Netflix

"They picked me up from the airport," he recalls, referring to his Texas host family. "They were both under five-foot; they were really short people. They just did not talk. I mean, she talked the shit out of me while I was in the car. He didn't say a word for the entire hour from the airport. It was really stressing me out when we got to the house. When they put the key in the door, it was like a zoo inside."

Kinnaman begins howling to impart just how many animals were contained inside this prefab home, that once inside, revealed slippery floors covered in desert sand, a bedroom with blank walls and a mattress, and about a dozen long-haired sausage dogs – the source of the beastly bedlam he heard while outside the door.

"I felt like Indiana Jones when he was lowered into the snake pit," he says, laughing. "And this was my big adventure to get away from all the trouble? I remember when the airplane was coming in to land, I was looking at all the houses and there were so many swimming pools. Coming from Sweden, having a swimming pool was super exotic. I was like, 'Oh, god, I hope they have a swimming pool.' They were so far away from having a swimming pool, you have no idea. They were just really odd people. She was like, [putting on his best Texas accent] 'If you wanna watch a movie, just go look in that cupboard and you can watch any movie you want.' They had about 150 films in there. They were all cartoons."

At school, with kids his own age, things picked up. He loved going, even when 40 percent of the students were allegedly gang-affiliated. It's when he caught the attention of the high school football coach, with his performance at a soccer practice, that his entrée into Texas life came to full flower.

"I played a lot of sports in Sweden, so I soon became the captain of the soccer team," he says. "While we were doing drills, I was kicking the ball pretty deep. The football team was playing on the field next to ours. The football coach came over and was like, 'Hey, you! Are you that Swedish guy? You think you could kick a real football?' They just shut down the soccer practice and I walked over to the football field and I started kicking the football and they kept moving the ball back and they were like, 'Well, you just broke the school record. So, you wanna be a kicker?' Then, I was the kicker on the football team. I was OK. I kicked a some 45-yard field goals, but I also missed a couple."

After his year abroad, Kinnaman returned to Stockholm. According to his former classmate and actress Noomi Rapace, she never saw the adolescent awkwardness that would put Kinnaman in a less than flattering light. His rough side appealed to her. By her own admission, she was an "uneducated, punk rock girl from the countryside, and a good drinker" who became fascinated by this kid who was "skinny, tall, and totally hip-hop."

"I was like, 'Damn, he looks cool,'" Rapace says, laughing, calling from a film set in Europe, knowing it's for a piece not about her, but Kinnaman, which speaks volumes about his likeability and strong friendships. "He was part of the cool kids. I was part of this lonely planet and everyone probably thought I was really bad ass and really tough and hardcore, but I was actually nervous and wanted to be a part of that group. Normally, the talented people are not cool in high school. But Joel was cool and talented.

"We officially met later on," Rapace continues. "He went to a theater school in Malmö down in the south [of Sweden]. I knew a lot of people around him, and I started to hear rumors about him doing an amazing show, a play he was in – I think he was Dostoevsky. And I heard rumors about his amazing performance and I was like, 'What? The hip-hop kid? He's a serious actor now?' I became amazed more and more by him and his journey. Normally, I just want to be alone, but I Iove being around him and Cleo [Wattenström, tattoo artist and Kinnaman's wife since 2016). They've been like family to me when I'm working in L.A. I'm so happy to have him in my life. He's like my brother."


The setting of 'Altered Carbon' feels like 'Blade Runner' meets 'Battlestar Galactica'. Katie Yu / Netflix

Kinnaman went on to great success as an actor in Sweden, but his restlessness, possibly inherited from his father, or his peripatetic childhood, left him wanting more. Instead of staying put, Kinnaman soon decided he should give America another go, not to revisit the pack of Texas dachshunds, but to expand the range of his work.

"The way my career was going in Sweden, I got about as far as I could go," he says, about his decision to abandon his growing stardom in Stockholm. "There was sort of a glass ceiling in Sweden and I could have kept doing it, but I felt I had reached the pinnacle. I think the natural aspiration – well, maybe not natural – is to surpass that. When I moved to the States, eight or nine years ago, there were no Swedes here. Since my dad was American, I had this feeling I could go and do it for real."

Although the Skarsgård clan has been cast in film and TV roles for years, Kinnaman felt free of expectations. "There were Swedes that came to Hollywood, but they would play like German prison guards. They would have dialogue like, 'You, there. Go to the left.' That was their contribution. I thought I could play American characters and have a real career. Then, when I tried, it all went pretty quickly and I was encouraged to keep going."

Most viewers were likely introduced to his work Stateside in The Killing, the AMC detective procedural that benefitted greatly from the chemistry between its costars, Kinnaman and Mireille Enos. He followed that by giving it his best in the RoboCop reboot – another project that focused on reassembled bodies with A-list potential – and his biggest project to date, as military officer Rick Flag in Suicide Squad (he'll also be in the sequel slated for a 2019 release). Then he returned to TV when he starred in House of Card's fourth and fifth seasons as Will Conway – the sexy, young political rival pitted against Kevin Spacey's sinister Frank Underwood.

The partnership that made The Killing so appealing will hopefully reemerge when Kinnaman and Enos reunite for Amazon's forthcoming series adaptation of Joe Wright's 2011 film, Hanna.

"To work with Joel Kinnaman is to have an ally," Enos explains via email. "He's someone who allows you to live in his pocket and is happy to live in yours too. He knows how to be a partner. If there were ever disagreements on set, he always took my side knowing we could figure out the details later. It's a trait that builds total trust. He manages to give performances that are totally compelling, charming, and lovable, while also being without vanity or ego."


For Laeta Kalogridis, Altered Carbon's creator and showrunner, it was Kinnaman's emanation of worldliness that appealed to her most, considering his character on the show is, according to his cortical stack, an Asian revolutionary merely housed inside the body of an extremely fit Swede. "I ate kale leaves with my own tears as dressing," Kinnaman quips about his physical preparation for the role.

"I didn't have a fixed idea in my head of who the actor should be," Kalogridis says. "I really felt like we needed someone who had a feeling of being a little bit outside of any culture he's in, and Joel has this. I think it's because of the Swedish thing: He's multilingual; he has such an affinity for world cultures; and he doesn't exist in a small, very defined cultural space. He's a citizen of the world, and you feel it. You feel it as an actor, you feel it in his performance, you feel it in your interactions with him as a person. And he was such a joy to work with. A true team player."

As for Kinnaman, he's going to keep himself on this side of the Atlantic for the foreseeable future. Recently married to tattoo artist Cleo Wattenström and living in Venice, California, the overcast Nordic winters are becoming a distant memory. But as rumors of a second season of Altered Carbon have inevitably begun (and whether he'll be returning), Kinnaman might be ready to look elsewhere, per usual.

"I love science fiction. I gravitate toward those kinds of stories when I'm looking for my next thing to watch. I think I have done enough science fiction for a while now. I think might go play someone with a terminal disease, or something," he says, laughing. "I have way too little body fat and too many abs in this show. Now I've got to go do something to get my credibility back."

[ohva]

This was a cute article, but lots of gifs and photos so I'm not trying to copy it all here. Click on the link. In addition to Joel Kinnaman and Joel Edgerton, some Alexander Skarsgard and Jason Clarke thrown in for good measure.

Joel Edgerton is in 'Red Sparrow' and Joel Kinnaman is in 'Altered Carbon' and They Are Not the Same Person

www.pajiba.com/celebrities_are_better_than_you/joel-edgerton-and-joel-kinnaman-are-not-the-same-person.php?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=twitter

[ohva]

Audio interview with Joel, Popcorn with Peter Travers.

player.fm/series/popcorn-with-peter-travers/joel-kinnaman-altered-carbon

Video version

abcnews.go.com/GMA/Culture/altered-carbon-star-joel-kinnaman-dual-roles-hit/story?id=53585365

[babelfish]

A short Q&A from Grazia France

Google Translate Link

Joel Kinnaman : "J'aurais aimé peindre 'Guernica'"
INTERVIEW EXPRESS - Héros de la série "Altered Carbon", l'acteur mène l'enquête dans ce thriller aux mystères génétiquement modifiés. Il nous livre certains de ses secrets.



La réplique que vous aimeriez dire dans la vie?

"You're talking to me ?", comme De Niro dans Taxi Driver.


L'oeuvre d'art que vous auriez aimé signer?

Guernica de Picasso. Pour sa puissance.


Un livre que vous n'arrivez jamais à finir?

Les Frères Karamazov. J'adore Dostoïevski, j'ai quasiment tout lu, mais sans que je sache pourquoi, celui-ci m'échappe.



Le film drôle qui ne vous fait pas rire?

Je crois bien que je suis suffisamment stupide pour rire devant n'importe quoi. (Rires.)



La personnalité à qui vous avez déjà essayé de ressembler?

Ryan Gosling. Même pas dans un film en particulier. Juste Ryan Gosling. Je trouve qu'il a un style incroyable.



Le personnage de fiction avec qui vous aimeriez avoir une conversation?

Le personnage de Shu Lien, jouée par Michelle Yeoh dans Tigre et Dragon d'Ang Lee. Mais ce serait difficile, vu que je ne parle pas chinois... En tout cas, elle me botterait les fesses, c'est sûr.



La série qui vous a fait refuser une sortie entre amis?

Handmaid's Tale, un chef-d'oeuvre.



La chanson qui vous rappelle votre adolescence?

It Was a Good Day d'Ice Cube. J'étais un grand fan de hip-hop dans mon adolescence, j'en écoutais constamment.



Le disque qu'il faudrait que tout le monde écoute?

Blue Lines de Massive Attack.



Le lieu où vous préférez danser?

Je crois que ça reste dans un club. Je suis toujours prêt, j'ai tous les pas qu'il faut pour ça.

[ohva]

Thanks for the article, and thanks for the google translate link! He never ceases to surprise me!!

[wanderingstar78]

Peter Travers is a really good interviewer! I enjoyed his interviews with both Alex and Joel. He's got a good sense of humor and is able to draw out some really interesting answers.

Totally onboard with Joel's love of Guernica, but I'd probably cut him if he tried to sign it.

[babelfish]

Joel in Vogue Korea March 2018


Google Translate Link

(I hope you don't mind me adding the Korean hangul text, these forums serve as a good backup when these links eventually go down. Let me know if you guys prefer not to have the text)

Big boy

2018.03.02

넷플릭스의 자본과 기술력, 〈아바타〉 〈셔터 아일랜드〉의 각본가가 건설한 디스토피아 〈얼터드 카본〉. 그곳에서 주연배우 조엘 킨나만의 몸은 핵심 장치다.


그레이 컬러 니트 재킷과 베이지 컬러 헨리넥 티셔츠는
폴로 랄프 로렌(Polo Ralph Lauren).


넷플릭스의 오리지널 콘텐츠 <하우스 오브 카드> 시즌 4에서 조엘 킨나만(Joel Kinnaman)을 처음 봤다. 프랜시스(케빈 스페이시)에 맞서 대통령을 꿈꾸는 젊고 야망 가득한 정치인, 윌 콘웨이. 긴 야욕의 세월만큼 늙어버린 프랜시스가 알약과 한숨으로 아침을 시작할 때, 윌은 부인과 부엌에서 섹스를 한다. 189cm의 키, 스웨덴 국적으로 게르만족의 골격을 타고난 조엘의 외형은 프랜시스와 대비되며 긴장감을 키운다. 조엘를 만나는 날 굽이 12cm인 싸이하이를 신었음에도 마주 서자 내 머리는 그의 쇄골까지만 닿았다. 고개를 들자 태닝한 듯한 황토색 피부의 목선이 드러났다. 그는 익숙하다는 듯이 허리를 숙여서 나와 눈을 마주쳤다.

호박색 눈동자다. 조엘은 엄청난 제작비를 쏟아부은(액수는 밝히지 않았다) 넷플릭스의 기대작 <얼터드 카본(Altered Carbon)>의 주연배우로 내한했다.

조엘 킨나만의 인터뷰 촬영은 무한대로 팽창할 것 같은 그의 어깨에 맞는 재킷을 구하는 것이 관건이었다. 본인의 옷을 입고 촬영하겠다고 요구할 만한 체격이었다. 하지만 파파라치에게 ‘얼굴 낭비 패션’을 선보여온 데다, 이번 공항 패션은 붉은색 꽃 자수의 데님 재킷이었다. ‘외모 자신감’이 빚어낸 참극이다. <보그>는 자체 스타일링을 고집했고, 촬영 당일 조엘은 흔쾌히 마 음을 바꿨다. 탈의실 문을 닫기도 전에 웃통을 휙 벗어젖혔다.

그의 몸에는 문신이 많다. 타투이스트인 아내가 새긴 작품이다. 팔에 영화 <수어사이드 스쿼드>에 함께 출연한 윌 스미스가 직접 새겨준 ‘SKWAD’도 보인다. 본래 철자는 ‘Squad’다. 맞춤법 틀린 문신이 그 영화의 참패를 보여주는 것 같았다. 그는 이 문신을 지울 생각이 없다. 더 이상의 문신을 거절 할 뿐. 촬영 전에 2시간씩 문신을 지우는 메이크업을 해야 하는데 그 범위를 늘리고 싶지 않다. “게다가 아내보다 쿨해질 자신이 없거든요. 아내가 저보다 훨씬 많은 타투를 갖고 있죠.”


데님 팬츠는 폴로 랄프 로렌(Polo Ralph Lauren),
브라운 레더 스트랩 워치는
페라가모 타임피스(Ferragamo Timepiece at Gallery O’clock).


이 배우는 얘기할 때 모르는 척 유머를 툭툭 던진다. <얼터드 카본>의 충격적 포스터(나체의 남성이 마트의 상품처럼 랩에 싸여 있는)를 보곤 “치킨윙처럼 나오지 않았나요?”라고 했다. 포스터는 조엘의 멋진(!) 몸매를 3D 프린팅해서 스캐닝해 촬영했다. 그는 주 6일, 매일 12~14시간씩 촬영했고, 일요일에는 스턴트 리허설을 했기에 부족한 운동 시간을 철저히 식단으로 대체했다. “녹두, 완두콩처럼 정말이지 밋밋한 음식을 1년 동안 먹었죠.” <얼터드 카본>에서 ‘몸’은 비주얼뿐 아니라 스토리에서 중요한 요소다. 배경은 24세기. 의식을 저장하는 메모리 칩만 무사하면 얼마든지 육체를 옮겨가며 영생할 수 있다. 조엘이 분한 타케시 코바치는 강력한 전투부대인 엔보이의 일원이었지만 반역 혐의를 받고 살해당했다가 250년 만에 다른 육체로 부활한다(250년 전의 타케시는 한국계 배우 윌 윤 리가 연기한다). 타케시를 깨운이는 최고의 부자인 뱅크로프트다. 타케시에게 자신을 살해한 범인을 찾아 달라고 부탁하면서 SF에 미스터리가 더해진다. 언제든 새로운 몸으로 부활할 수 있는 억만장자도 ‘나를 죽인 놈’은 궁금하다.



<얼터드 카본>의 크리에이터는 레이타 칼로그리디스다. 그녀는 <아바타>의 총괄 프로듀서이자 <셔터 아일랜드> <터미네이터 제니시스>의 각본을 썼다. 그해의 최고 SF 소설에 수여하는 필립 K. 딕 상을 받은 SF 작가 리처드 K. 모건의 <얼터드 카본>을 읽은 10여 년 전부터 영화화를 꿈꿨다. 소설의 분위기를 살리려면 R 등급의 수위여야 했기에 영화 투자를 받기 어려웠고, 결국 넷플릭스라는 새 매체와 10부작 드라마로 구현되었다. 영화와 드라마의 경계가 무너지고 OTT 서비스의 부흥이라는 제작 환경 변화에 승차해 자신의 꿈을 실현시킨 것이다. 외형은 10부작 드라마지만 돈과 기술력, 사이버펑크, 수사물을 총합한 장편영화를 보는 기분이다.


특히 <블레이드 러너>를 오마주한 강렬한 디스토피아 비주얼이 인상적이다. “1982년에 나온 <블레이드 러너>는 굉장한 충격이었죠. 그에 영향을 받아 수많은 사이버펑크 작품이 쏟아졌어요. 우리도 그중 하나죠. 다른 점이 라면 <얼터드 카본>은 그 세계관에 엔터테인먼트 요소를 가미했죠.” 스트립 댄서는 손님의 취향에 맞춰 순식간에 몸을 바꾸고, 억만장자의 집은 사람들의 시선에서 벗어난 구름 위에 있다. 빈부 격차도 <얼터드 카본>의 주요 요소다. 구름 위의 집에는 탱탱한 가슴선과 유두가 드러나는 화이트 새틴 드레스를 입은 안주인이 산다. 가난한 사람은 늙고 병든 육체를 받는다. 일곱 살쯤 되는 아이는 다크서클로 미뤄보아 마약 중독자의 신체로 다시 태어난 게 분명하다. 어떻게 내 딸에게 저런 육체를 줄 수 있냐고 항의하는 가족에게 관계자는 그마저 싫으면 거두겠다고 말한다.



조엘 킨나만이 필름 카메라를 응시하고 있다.
포근한 울 소재 재킷을 입고도 이렇게 섹시할 수 있다니.
재킷은 폴로 랄프 로렌(Polo Ralph Lauren).



<얼터드 카본>은 조엘 킨나만으로 하여금 현실의 자신을 돌아보게 한다. “제가 SF 작품을 좋아하는 이유죠. 우리가 잘못된 결정을 내렸을 때 미래가 어떨지 생각해보게 하니까요. 가끔 미래가 두려워요. 과학자조차 AI를 우려하잖아요. 환경문제나 여러 난제를 AI가 해결할 수도 있겠죠. 어느 방향으로 갈지 몰라요. <얼터드 카본>처럼 250년 뒤에 제가 다른 육체로 태어날 수도 있겠고요. SF는 미래에서 일어날 법한 단면을 보여주죠.”



조엘 킨나만은 디스토피아에서 살인범을 수사한다. 크리에이터인 레이타의 뜻대로 R 등급의 액션을 수행하면서. “성인들만 관람하는 액션 대작을 촬영하기란 쉽지 않죠. 육체적인 도전이 요구된 작품이었어요. 세계 태권도 챔피언이기도 한 스턴트 더블이 태권도를 가르쳐줘서 가능했죠.” 겸손하게 얘기했지만 그는 무술 마니아다. 복싱의 오랜 팬이며, 지난 6개월은 주짓수에 빠져 살았다. “기회가 될 때마다 주짓수 훈련을 해요. 집에선 아내가 잠들기 2시간 전에는 주짓수 영상 시청을 금지했어요. 그걸 보면 흥분돼서 잠을 못 자거든요.” 그는 육체의 허들 레이스를 즐긴다. 그가 인생을 살아가는 방법이기도 하다. “육체적인 도전을 이겨내면 정신적인 어려움도 극복할 수 있어요. 최소한 덜 어렵게 느껴지죠. 아침에 힘든 운동을 하는 이유죠. 나머지 시간 동안 난감한 일이 벌어져도 이겨낼 수 있거든요.” 그는 새로운 무술을 배우면서 삶의 방향성과 집중력을 키운다고 덧붙였다. “무술뿐 아니라 늘 새로운 무언가를 배우고 싶어요. 연기할 때는 행복하고 하지 않으면 왜 우울할까 생각해본 적이 있어요. 어떤 배역이든 도전하고 극복해내야 하잖아요. 그 상태를 유지해야만 살아 있는 것 같아요.”




이번 작품이 준 또 다른 도전 과제는 ‘대형 프로젝트의 리더’가 되는 것이다. “배역에 영향을 굉장히 많이 받아요. 하지만 이번에는 의도적으로 배역과 나를 분리했어요. 조연이라면 캐릭터에 몰입해서 촬영 기간을 보냈겠지만 <얼터드 카본>에선 리더 역할도 해야 했거든요. 스태프들에게 긍정적인 에너지를 전달하고 싶었죠.” 그는 촬영 중 당한 부상도 웃으며 얘기한다. “다섯 번째 에피소드를 찍다가 다리가 부러졌어요. 액션 하면서 부러졌으면 정말 멋지겠죠. 근데 대사를 까먹어서 의자를 발로 찼는데, 의자 말고 제가 망가졌어요. 무거운 영국식 의자였거든요. 정말 대단한 액션 영화에 출연하면서 말이죠!” 심지어 주연작인 <수어사이드 스쿼드>와 <로보캅>의 흥행 참패에도 그는 침잠하지 않는다.


“위스키 한 병 사 들고 집에 와서 흠뻑 마시면 되죠. 실패를 통해 성장하는 거 아니겠어요?(웃음) 사실 작품에서 배우가 통제할 수 있는 부분은 한정적이죠. 최종 컷에 대한 결정권은 감독에게 있잖아요. 배우로서 그 작품을 진실하게 대했다면 그걸로 충분해요. <수어사이드 스쿼드>는 지금도 너무 사랑해요. 그 작품에 내려진 가혹한 비판을 인정하지만, 내게 어떤 의미인지도 중요합니다. 타인의 의견 때문에 내 의견이 무시되어선 안 되죠.”



CREDIT

에디터 김나랑
포토그래퍼 주용균
스타일리스트 노해나
헤어&메이크업 이수미

[ohva]

Thank you!! Great find!

Yes, including the text is much appreciated. It's good insurance to have it here.