Biography
This page uses content from the Peter Stormare biography page on the English version of Wikipedia and is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. This list of authors can be seen in the page history. Rotten Tomatoes disclaims any and all warranties as to the accuracy or reliability of the content.
(born August 27, 1953 in Arbrå, Sweden) is a Swedish film actor. With his fluency in English and his skill for mimicking accents, he has become much in demand in Hollywood productions, where he usually plays Europeans of various nationalities and often of dubious morality. Many of Stormare's characters are highly eccentric.
Early life
Stormare was born in Arbrå, Sweden as "Peter Storm", but changed his name when he discovered he shared it with a senior student at the acting academy. His original choice of name, Retep Mrots (his own name spelled backwards), was rejected. Stormare is a comparative of the word "storm", meaning "stormer".
Career
Stormare began his career with the Swedish Royal Dramatic Theatre, to which he belonged eleven years. In 1990 he took a leading position (Associate Artistic Director) at the Tokyo Globe Theatre and made a name for himself through various Shakespeare performances including Hamlet. Three years later, he went to New York and mainly took part there in English language productions. In Sweden, he has worked with Ingmar Bergman, by whom he was apparently discovered. He has also played Carl Hamilton, a fictional Swedish secret agent similar to James Bond.
He was critically praised for his role as a quiet and ruthless villain (with Steve Buscemi) in Fargo (1996), and later played a sleazy, unlicensed "eye doctor" ("Solomon Eddie") in Minority Report. In 1998 he appeared in "The Frogger", a Seinfeld episode where he played a "rogue electrician" known as "Slippery Pete". He also portrayed Uli Kunkel in the 1998 film The Big Lebowski, as well as playing Lev, the Russian Cosmonaut in 1999's Armageddon, and Alexi in the 2003 summer blockbuster Bad Boys II. In the 2005 film Constantine, Stormare played Lucifer. He played an interrogator in the 2005 movie The Brothers Grimm. His first major character in television was on the show Prison Break in 2005, where he played John Abruzzi.
He also was the voice of Mattias Nilsson in the videogame Mercenaries: Playground of Destruction, and the voice of Isair in the computer game Icewind Dale 2.
In February 2006, he starred as "Wolfgang" in Volkswagen's "Un-pimp ze Auto" series of television commercials. He plays a German engineer who "un-pimps" tricked-out economy cars by destroying them using humorous methods and then giving the shocked owner a new Volkswagen GTI. He speaks in urban American English with an exaggerated German accent, saying things like "German engineering in da haus, ja" and "representing Deutschland." The commercials are a parody of MTV's popular show Pimp My Ride in which auto-body mechanics give run down, older cars an urban makeover with things like tinted windows, spoilers, flashy rims, and loud stereos. The commercials were never aired in Germany itself.
Stormare is contracted to play the main character in the Swedish upcoming movie "Svartvattnet", which is going to be filmed in Sweden and Norway during 2007.
Private life
Today Stormare lives in the USA as well as Sweden. He is separated from his first wife, actress Karen Sillas, with whom he has a daughter named Kelly.
Stormare is also a musician. After Bono of U2 heard some of Stormare's music, he encouraged him to make an album and in 2002, he released his first album, Dallerpölsa och småfåglar. Stormare is the godfather of Gustaf Skarsgård, the son of equally-acclaimed Swedish actor Stellan Skarsgård, and plays in a band called Blonde From Fargo.
Trivia
When playing Slippery Pete in "The Frogger" Episode of Seinfeld, Stormare was kicked off the frogger machine by George Costanza for using up the battery. Stormare creepily said "You owe me a quarter." As John Abruzzi in Prison Break, his only request from Michael Scofield when leaving in Otis was a quarter.[1]
Filmography (selected)
- Anamorph (2007)
- Nacho Libre (2006)
- The Batman vs. Dracula (DVD-only release) (2005)
- Prison Break (TV series) (2005 - 2006)
- The Brothers Grimm (2005)
- Quake 4 (Computer game) (2005)
- Constantine (2005)
- Hitler: The Rise of Evil (2003)
- Bad Boys II (2003)
- Minority Report (2002)
- Windtalkers (2002)
- The Tuxedo (2002)
- Bad Company (2002)
- Chocolat (2000)
- Dancer in the Dark (2000)
- 8mm (1999)
- Armageddon (1998)
- The Big Lebowski (1998)
- Hamilton (1998)
- The Lost World: Jurassic Park (1997)
- Fargo (1996)
- Damage (1992)
Discography
- Dallerpölsa och småfåglar (2002)
- Swänska hwisor vol 1 (2004)
- Lebowski-Fest 2005 (2005)
See also
- List of Swedish actors
Notes
External links
Permission is granted to copy, distribute and/or modify the biographical information on this page under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License, Version 1.2 or any later version published by the Free Software Foundation.
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