Upon receiving the Fargo (1996) script: "Where are all my lines?!"

"I was a foreigner, and I knew that most of the parts I would be offered would be foreigners. I knew I could not compete with Bruce Willis, Tom Cruise, and Nicolas Cage, and so I did not fight it. I saw the path I was destined to walk and decided to do the parts that would be offered to me as well as I possibly could." --on his initial career outlook when he first came to the U.S. to act. Show less «

I've done Hamlet, and no one talks about Hamlet killing five people. No one even talks about sending him to jail. And it's the same thing for a character like Abruzzi. I think people root for him because he's just punishing people who are bad humans in a way. Always in movies and TV, in drama we always root for those characters. Even if they have killed four or five people, they have killed people that we've really disliked. They have done us a service. And he's such a character. That's why I've tried to keep him very Shakespearean. --talking about his character John Abruzzi from Prison Break (2005) Show less «

"I grew up in northern Sweden in a very small village and this is exactly the same. It's very strange. It's two hundred small villages linked together. Living here as compared to living in Tokyo, where I lived, or in London or New York, this is so much more like living in the country. You go to bed early and you get up early, even if you're not working. You get up early with the sun and go to bed with the sun. That is much more rural kind of living and it suits me so much better than New York." - On Los Angeles. Show less «

There are so many people who hate themselves, and I realized early on that you can't change your looks. You have to live with what you've got. And you have to give yourself credit every morning by saying "yes!" -- and that'll help you. But if you dis yourself every morning, it's not good for you mentally, and it won't help your appearance. It's not that I love my looks. But ... it's me. And I cherish the blessing that there's only one me in this world. I'm happy about that fact, and it shines through sometimes. Show less «

Yeah, prep is very important -- for me, at least. I like to improvise. But if you're the only one improvising, then you can f**k it up for other actors in the scene if you're the only one coming up with new things. Sometimes it can be good, and the director tells you to do something to stir or awaken the actors whom you're playing with, or they do it to you and you have a great reaction. But I think it's the directors who especially need to prepare their work. A lot of young directors today work on digital and run the cameras 24/7, and it's tedious for an actor to do the same scene over and over again. When a director is prepped, you feel very secure, and you become a better actor. He knows what he wants and he's like, "Okay, let's move on to the next scene." Show less «

"I liked the way that film took realistic events and added this slightly out-of-kilter perspective. My character in that film was, in one sense, a caricature of a killer, but there was also a sense of mystery surrounding him that captured the imagination. Fargo (1996) was an exciting experience for me largely because of the approach the Coen brothers took. It was the antithesis of Armageddon (1998). It was low-budget, a very guerrilla-style approach to filmmaking that made its own rules and was very specific in what it was trying to accomplish." --on Fargo (1996). Show less «

They [the Coen Brothers] have an obsession with pancakes. It's a Midwestern thing, I guess. I had never had pancakes. I grew up in Sweden, and I'm not a big fan of pancakes. Show less «