After 15 years in Hollywood, Joel Kinnaman finds his Swedish a bit rusty

It's not unusual for foreign actors to play American roles in Hollywood films. Most often, it involves British actors who have to adjust their British accents to sound more American, but there are plenty of actors from other countries as well, including the Swedish star Joel Kinnaman, known for his roles in The Killing, Robocop, and The Suicide Squad, among others.

Prior to his Hollywood career taking off, he appeared in several Swedish productions, though this is now a rare occurrence as his better-paying international career is going so well. Last year, however, he returned to his roots when he filmed the Norwegian TV series Jo Nesbø's Detective Hole. But it apparently wasn't entirely easy, as Kinnaman says in a Screenrant interview that after so long, he's to some extent lost his Swedish language skills:

"Yeah, for me it was... you know, I came to the States like 15 years ago, around 2010. I started working here and I haven't done anything back home since then. So yeah, it was trippy, and halfway through I was a little bummed with myself. When I moved to the States - my dad's American - English has always been an emotional language for me. Sometimes when you learn a second language it's hard to be emotional in that language, but I didn't have that problem. Still, the dialect... it was about trying to sound American.

"When I saw a text in Swedish, I would automatically see three or four ways of saying it, how to rhythmize the language. I was much more creative in Swedish when I saw a text. But in English, it was more about getting it right, making it sound American. Over the years, though, I found that I sort of acquired that ability in English too - that I could find the same level of creativity."

But while he mastered American English in this organic way, his native language took a bit of a hit. Kinnaman explains:

"And when I went back and shot this in Swedish, I realized I have another gear in Swedish that I just haven't been using for 15 years. So it was a bit of an aha-moment for me - I need to be doing stuff in Swedish, in Sweden, regularly."

Jo Nesbø's Detective Hole premiered two weeks ago on Netflix and has received consistently high ratings according to Rotten Tomatoes, with 94% from film critics and 74% from audiences. It's worth checking out if you're in the mood for a hard-boiled police drama and to see Swedish actor Joel Kinnaman struggle with the Swedish language.