Peter Stormareis one of those Hollywood actors you instantly associate with villains. He’s delivered several standout performances as antagonists infilms likeConstantineandMinority Report. And while some actors have major issues with being typecast, Storemare certainly isn’t one of them. The Swedish-born actor with the warm smile—often cast as villains with thick accents—has embraced this direction his career has taken, and he’s not shy about saying so.
Stormare spoke toThe Directabout his latest movie, the actionthrillerStand Your Ground. In the film, Stormare plays Bastion, a crime lord who stands against Jack, a former soldier who swears revenge on those who killed his wife. Once again, Stormare steps into the villain’s shoes, and he used the interview to reflect on the stereotype and where it might come from:
“I came to this country, in Hollywood, like in the end of the ’80s. Just to give you a very brief good timing. I had a mentor… She said, ‘Peter, remember, in Hollywood, there’s no time, only timing.’ And I think about that expression and what she taught me, because when I came in the end of the 80s, in 1990, 91, all the minority groups had been outside the studios complaining about being portrayed as rapists and murderers and thugs… When they couldn’t use African Americans or Hispanics, that went to Asian and then, you know, to Middle Eastern, and everybody’s complaining and complaining. So the studio said, ‘Let’s go back to the f*cking Germans and Russians.’
“And that was my, it was good timing on my behalf, because no one here, none of the producers know any language from Europe. And when they asked me, ‘Can you speak Serbian,’ I said, ‘Yes, of course.’ It was good timing, but also coming from theater, and when you’re on stage, you want to do very complicated characters. You want to do a Macbeth, or you want to do a Hamlet that kills six people.”
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One of Stormare’s early performances was in Ingmar Bergman’s production ofHamlet(prior to that, he had a minor role inFanny and Alexander). This kind of artistic “education” paved the way for his breakout role in the 1996 thrillerFargo. A year later, he played the villain who actuallydeservedto be eaten by dinosaurs inThe Lost World: Jurassic Park. He also fixed things his way on a Russian space station inArmageddon. With hundreds of credits to his name, Stormare is oftenthe captivating antagonist who manages to steal every scene. He’s even admitted that he enjoys playing villains more than heroes, simply because he finds it more fun:
“As an actor, you can be the most craziest character, and you get to keep the job and, in real life, you’re never allowed to keep your job if you’re act out crazy and instead out of 100 male actors, 99 will take Prince dark, one will maybe go for Prince white, the good looking guy, you know he will go for Prince white.
“But you know, it’s boring, like in the Snow White you want to do the witch with an apple. You don’t want to do the prince coming on a White Stallion and kissing Snow White. That’s kind of boring.”
The Red Hat in ‘Stand Your Ground’: A Loud Wink to MAGA Culture
Stormare’sStand Your Groundsees him play the regular bad guy who goes all the way in pushing his agenda. Only this time, he uses the character to deliver a message, one subtly embedded in a piece of clothing. Bastion wears a red hat, and, unfortunately, this fashion choice is now associatedwith one side of America. Stormare confirmed this association by saying the following:
“I really want to stress some social issues in everything I do, and even if you can’t see them perfectly, there might be one or two in the audience that can see them, and that’s enough. That’s enough. You know, you touch one or two.
“It represents maybe a side of our beautiful country that I really don’t agree with 100%. It is a very racial – it’s a very white supremacy society… His town is like where some of the Bible people, they build a little town out somewhere in the wilderness where no one is allowed except for white people, and they build the main streets looking like Disneyland, and they have a church, and they all have six wives or seven husbands, and they live happily there, but it says no strangers allowed.
“I just wanted to show that side of our country with this movie and how still African-Americans or minorities are treated in our country, in a country that was sort of raped by white man and taken away from Native Americans that we shuffled into reservations. So that’s my whole take.”
