Peter Stormare

Biography

Early life

Stormare was born in Arbri¥, 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 in a promotional photograph for Fargo.

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. He portrayed Dieter Stark in the 1997 film The Lost World: Jurassic Park. 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 1998'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.

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. Currently, he is married to Toshimi Stormare.

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, Dallerpi¶lsa och smi¥fi¥glar. Stormare is the godfather of Gustaf Skarsgi¥rd, the son of equally-acclaimed Swedish actor Stellan Skarsgi¥rd, 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.

Filmography (selected)

Stormare as Swedish agent Carl Hamilton.

Anamorph (2007)

Straight Edge (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

Dallerpi¶lsa och smi¥fi¥glar (2002)

Swi¤nska hwisor vol 1 (2004)

Lebowski-Fest 2005 (2005)

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Source: Wikipedia. All text is available under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License