30 Unknown Facts About Peter Stormare We Bet You Never Knew

27 February 2019, 8:24 pm EST By Ruby Karnick

Peter Stormare, the recipient of Vancouver Film Critics Circle Awards for Best Actor in a Canadian Film for his role in “Small Town Murder Songs,” is not just an accomplished stage and screen actor, but also a successful theatre director, playwright and musician. Here are some really unique things to know about the Swedish actor:

He is often known to play extremely quiet, intense and dangerous men with an extreme capacity for violence that well suits his tall frame with an imposing physical presence.
He released his first album "Dallerpölsa och småfåglar," in the year 2002, after Bono of U2 encouraging him to make an album.
He was reportedly first discovered by Ingmar Bergman, the most famous Swedish director, writer, and producer. The last thing Bergman said to Stormare was "Time and space separates us. But our souls are connected."
In the year 2014, he came up with the concept of the most popular TV series "Swedish Dicks," which in the initial stages, was intended to be a one-hour drama. It was Peter Settman, who suggested that it would be better as a series.
The protagonist's name in the "Swedish Dicks" series is Ingmar Bergman, named as homage to the Swedish director, who was Stormare's mentor at the Royal National Theater of Sweden.
He first planned the show "Swedish Dicks," to be a drama, but decided to change its course and make it a comedy, after collaborating with a friend more experienced in half-hour comedies.
During the last fight scene in the 1998 movie "Commander Hamilton," Mark Hamill accidentally hits him. He is known to have broken his nose four times during filming of his movies. In fact, in the year 2008, he had a nose surgery done to prevent him from going blind on the right eye.
He followed his first music album with two more albums titled "Swänska hwisor vol 1," and "Lebowski-Fest 2005," in the year 2004 and 2005 respectively.
He is founder of the musical band named "Blonde From Fargo," and reportedly named the band as an homage to his breakthrough American role, in the 1996 movie "Fargo."
He is owner of an eclectic record label named StormVox, based in Los Angeles, which was set up by him to launch musical projects that he believes in.

Rolf Peter Ingvar Storm was born on August 27, 1953, in Arbrå in Gävleborg County, Sweden, to Karl Ingvar Storm and Gunhild Storm.
He is known to have a strong spiritual side, inherited from his mother. He claims that his mother was a medium, who reportedly inherited that ability from her own father.
Stefan Storm, the singer-songwriter of The Sound of Arrows, a Swedish electronic music duo, is his nephew.
He started his acting career with the Royal Dramatic Theatre in Sweden, and worked there for around 11 years, before becoming the associate artistic director at the Tokyo Globe Theatre in 1992.
He changed his name to Stormare, in the initial days of his acting career, as there were already two Peter Storms at the Swedish Royal Dramatic Theatre.
The word Stormare is actually a Swedish word meaning "Stormer." Before deciding on "Stormare, he contemplated using "Retep Mrots," which is just "Peter Storm" written backwards.
His first critically acclaimed role that reached the international audience was as one of the kidnappers named - Gaear Grimsrud, in 1996 movie "Fargo" by the Academy Award-winners Joel and Ethan Coen.
It is said that the Coen Brothers offered Stormare a role of Eddie the Dane in the 1990 movie "Miller's Crossing," which he had to turn down with regret due to scheduling conflicts, and that when they offered him a role in "Fargo," he gladly accepted it.
In the entire movie of "Fargo," his character of Gaear Grimsrud reportedly has only 18 lines of dialogue, and never says more than a complete sentence at one time.
During the filming of the movie "Fargo," that took place in and around the actual town of Brainerd, he is said to have spent his off-days visiting nearby cities with Swedish names.

It is reported that the character of Uli in the 1998 movie "The Big Lebowski," originated on the sets of the movie "Fargo," during the conversations between Ethan Coen and Stormare, who often spoke in a mock German accent.
In a scene where he is first attacked by the Compys, in his most famous 1997 movie "The Lost World: Jurassic Park," he is seen yelling and throwing stones, then mumbling various curses in Swedish. It was not in the original script, but director Steven Spielberg thought it was excellent, and kept the take in the final cut.
It is said that he is not a fan of watching himself on screens, and that he avoids watching any of his TV shows or movies, whenever possible.
For the 2005 movie "Constantine," Stormare has originally auditioned for the role of Balthazar, but ended up bagging the role of Lucifer.
It is reported that he came up with his own costume design of the off-white linen suit with tar dripping down from his feet, for his role as Lucifer in the "Constantine," as the director and producer had initially planned "leather pants, bare-chested, a dog collar with spikes" with tattoos over his face and chest.
He was married to the American stage and film actress Karen Sillas from 1989 to 2006, with the relationship ending in divorce.
Later in the year 2008, he married Toshimi Stormare, a native of Japan, and has a daughter Kaiya Bella Luna Stormare, born on May 9, 2009. He also has a daughter named Kelly, born in March 1989, through his former relationship.
He is known to divide his time between United States and Sweden, though his family resides in Los Angeles.
He is a very good friend of Swedish actor Stellan Skarsgård since the year 2000, when he was cast in Skarsgård's role of Jeff in the movie "Dancer in the Dark." He is the godfather of the actor's son Gustaf Skarsgård.
In the movie "Minority Report," he was the one who chose the Swedish children's song "Små grodorna" sung by Greta (Dr. Eddie's assistant), in an effort to make the scene more absurd, though director Steven Spielberg had wanted her to sing something by ABBA, from the beginning of the filming.