​Fargo Theatre Centennial Film Series: ‘Fargo’ — in conversation with Peter Stormare

By Greg Carlson

The Fargo Theatre’s Centennial Film Series opens this Tuesday evening (April 14) with a special 30th anniversary screening of “Fargo.” Nominated for seven Oscars, including Best Picture, “Fargo” received two Academy Awards; Frances McDormand was named Best Actress in her role as indefatigable Brainerd Chief of Police Marge Gunderson and Best Screenplay honors went to brothers Joel and Ethan Coen.

In the film, Peter Stormare’s taciturn Gaear Grimsrud may not deliver many lines of dialogue, but his onscreen presence is indelible and unforgettable. HPR film editor Greg Carlson spoke with Stormare ahead of his “return” visit to Fargo. The actor will participate in an on-stage Q&A following the April 14 screening. Tickets are available at the Fargo Theatre.

HPR: We look forward to welcoming you to Fargo. Not only will you be reunited with the woodchipper and also see our Marge Gunderson statue, you are coming to a place with a very high concentration of people of Swedish descent.

Peter Stormare: Yes, I see by your name that you’re not a Norwegian or a Dane with an “s-e-n.” You do it with an “s-o-n.”

HPR: You grew up in a really small town in northern Sweden. How did you make it from a little village to the Royal Dramatic Theatre?

PS: I don't know. When I was five years old, I told my parents that they weren’t my real parents, like every kid does. But I also said to my mother that my real mother lived in California. And when I get older, I'm going to reunite with my real mother in California.

My folks always teased me about it. “Oh, when are you going to move to California?” I said, “Stop teasing me about it. It’s real. I’m going to work in movies.” “You will have to take us out there one day once you make it there.”

It was a dream I had deep inside. I never talked much to anybody or my friends about it. But I told my parents when I was young, and I kept the dream alive.

HPR: Did your parents encourage you or discourage you to follow that dream?

PS: I think they thought I was a little bit loony. They just shook their heads and laughed it away and said, “Yeah, he’s strange. He’s sitting in the attic in the dark, just looking at stars. So let him be. Let him fantasize while he’s still young.”

Eventually, I made it down to Stockholm. I started walking, more or less. And by a fluke, I got a ticket to go to the theater. I had just turned 20 when I saw my first play. It was like God had opened the gates for me and I came into heaven.

We have academies in most European countries, where you have ballet and opera singers and actors together with painters and choreographers in something like an academic community. You get a grant from the state to go to school.

It’s a great thing to be part of as a young person. I was only 21 or 22 when I got accepted. The first National Theater play I was in received rave reviews and became a huge hit that ran for several years. That was a great start for a new guy in town. And then I met Ingmar Bergman and started working with him in his productions.

HPR: Bergman directed you in three big shows, right?

PS: More than three, but the big ones were “Long Day's Journey Into Night,” “Miss Julie” and “Hamlet.” I mean, those were three giant leaps for me. And you have all the lines in your head at the same time while you’re rehearsing a fourth show during the day. So you have to hold four different scripts in your head.

HPR: At this point in time, you're performing ‘Hamlet’ in Swedish. The Britt Hallkvist translation had been commissioned for this production. Did you prefer Hamlet in Swedish or in Shakespeare's original English?

PS: We did a two-week run at the National Theater. I got to meet a lot of actors, like Anthony Hopkins and Helen Mirren and Royal Shakespeare Company artistic director Peter Hall. Big, big stars I looked up to. They all wanted to see this completely new translation of Shakespeare.

Bergman really idolized Hallkvist. She had previously done many translations of Shakespeare. It was very special for me to contribute and be involved with the brand new “Hamlet” she wrote for us.

HPR: What was different when you directed your own version of ‘Hamlet’ at the Tokyo Globe Theater?

PS: In Japanese, instead of rhymes they might use alliteration, which felt very strange at first. So I worked very closely with my assistant director, who was fluent in English and Japanese and also knew German.

It is easier working with a translator when you don’t have only one word but can circle a feeling with four or five different words. The translation we did was so poetic, so dreamlike.

The ghost was influenced by the old “Ugetsu Monogatari.” The ghost comes as three guys in white, with bandanas and white masks and a bow with arrows that are shot right over the audience, up to a styrofoam board. They speak their words simultaneously, which becomes very eerie.

Hamlet sees his father from the front with the three ghosts standing behind him. In Europe we have a harder time making a ghost believable. But that is not the case in Japan. For them, it’s part of life.

HPR: Right, things like yūrei and kami.

PS: One of my first questions to the translator was, “How is the ghost for you? Does the way we handle the ghost work for you?” And he said, “In my family, my father’s ghost comes and visits me. We have no problem dealing with ghosts.”

That production became a big hit. Japan appreciates and understands Shakespeare. When the box office opened, I looked outside and saw 200 kids between the ages of 16 and 24 lined up to buy tickets. And the shows usually sold out.

I'm married to a Japanese woman and I’ve spent so much time in Japan that it feels like I belong in Japan. Like I should have been born there. I think Shakespeare would have loved to see his plays being performed today in Japan.

HPR: One of my favorite things that's been said about you comes from the Fade to Black YouTube channel. I am paraphrasing, but it is this idea that you are like a stone dropped into still water. And that over the course of your career, you have mastered the art of creative disruption.

PS: I can have a long beard. I can have a shaved head. I can have a strange walk. I can be different in every part and have a different accent. I don’t want to fall into the trap of just being a money-making machine stuck in the middle doing the same thing over and over.

That has happened to too many American actors and it’s very sad to see. Some of them try to do different things but when they get bad reviews it’s back to playing the same old guy again.

HPR: You also do so much with so little screen time.

PS: I don't need to be Wayne Gretzky. I want to be the guy who passes the puck to Gretzky and makes the best assists. I want to come into a movie and not have the heaviness of carrying the whole thing. I don’t want the burden that if it flops, I’m dead. Or the pressure that if it’s good, I’ll have to do the same part again. I want to be the secondary guy who can really be a character.

HPR: You've played Lucifer and Dracula and plenty of murderers. What is the appeal of the darkness?

PS: I think it comes from the stage. I don’t know if you direct as well, but if you put, let’s say, 100 actors on stage and ask them, “Who wants to play the Prince of Darkness?” you’re going to have 99 stepping forward. I think it’s very boring to do Prince White, the good guy.

A long time ago, I had a conversation with Harrison Ford and he said to me, “I've tried to play bad guys but when I do, nobody wants to see me in those movies. I always have to be on the good side.”

HPR: You've been featured in movies by Joel and Ethan Coen, Steven Spielberg, George Romero, Louis Malle, Terry Gilliam and Lars von Trier, to name just a few. How do you like to be directed?

PS: The best thing for an actor is when they’re properly directed. I learned this from Bergman. He built you a corral and said, more or less, “You’re a wild horse. And I’m not going to tame you. But this is your corral. It’s pretty big but I want you to stay inside it.”

He said, “My suggestion is that you do this and do this and do this. If you don’t like my suggestions, that’s fine, but don’t jump out of the corral. Don’t destroy the corral. You’re only one color. And there’s other people on stage, not just you.”

Like the Coen brothers, Bergman was very specific, like, “Lift the glass here” or “After you say that line, take the knife and then put it down and then say your next line.” But at the same time, if I didn’t like the way things were working, he would tell me to try something else.

HPR: Not too many actors can say they have been directed by Ingmar Bergman and Michael Bay.

PS: When it comes to Michael Bay, as an actor, you can be an actor. Bay has been criticized and looked down upon, as if all he can do is stage action. I think he’s a very good director. He’s just as specific as Bergman and the Coens and he’s very thorough and he prepares like crazy.

Sometimes he just takes over the camera, starts to move it and says, “I’m shooting now, John.” And John [Schwartzman, the director of photography] gets pissed and says, “No, I want to shoot this one. You take the B-camera.” Bay knows exactly what he wants in every shot.

HPR: You have more experience than some of your directors.

PS: It can be hard with younger, modern directors who have not done their homework. They have a digital camera. They can shoot 47 minutes without saying cut. And they have not done any prep.

It’s like you think you’re going to play soccer and then your coach announces you’ll be playing on ice. “Ice? Then shouldn’t we have skates? Shouldn’t we be playing hockey? What do you mean? We’re playing soccer on ice?” That can make you very insecure as an actor. And usually the results are bad.

HPR: You've played scenes with some of the biggest stars in the business, from Robin Williams and Tom Cruise to Jeff Bridges and Arnold Schwarzenegger and Keanu Reeves and on and on. Who are some of your acting heroes?

PS: I will choose two icons, one departed and one who is still here: the late Spencer Tracy and Clint Eastwood, who is still alive and kicking. One a legend and one a living legend. Inspirations for as long as I can remember, since I was a kid and started going to the movies.

Clint has something phenomenal in his way of being. From “Rawhide” to his films with Sergio Leone, you can observe him just breathing and believe that he will be able to say a lot without the need to use many words or talk all the time.

HPR: The descriptive phrase that gets attached to you maybe more than any other is “quiet menace.”

PS: The audience will come to me if I’m quiet. Even if I only have two scenes in a movie, I try to work something in so the audience wants to see more of me. If nothing else, they go out after the movie ends and say, “Oh shit, I wish there were more scenes with that guy.”

My aim is not to steal the show but to at least make an impression. When I was younger and working with Bergman, there was a saying that if you take a question mark and you hang it upside down, like they do in the Spanish language, it becomes a hook. Don’t be afraid of being a question mark up there on stage or in front of a camera, because people tend to bite onto that hook.

Bergman might not show a face 100%. Maybe just half a face will be lit so the audience can use their imagination to add what the rest looks like. He would say, “Don’t give the audience everything because they have paid money and they want to use the fantasy and be co-writers of the story.”

HPR: Are you a cinephile? Do you go out to see a lot of movies?

PS: No. I have claustrophobia. I’m afraid of people. I’m like a hermit. I don’t like movie theaters. I get annoyed if someone eats an apple like three rows away from me.

HPR: Or talks or looks at their phone.

PS: Something inside of me turns anxious. I can occasionally go to a cineplex in the middle of the day if there’s only three other people in the auditorium and I can sit far away from them. I really should be fighting more for movie theaters but even as a kid it was hard for me to be among a lot of people.

These days I mostly watch documentaries because for me to see episodic series and movies, having been in the business for so long, I recognize locations, I recognize people. “I’ve worked with him. I’ve worked with her. Oh, they’re in Toronto and pretending they’re in New York. That’s Vancouver. Oh, I know that spot. That’s Atlanta. Okay, now it’s Bulgaria standing in for New York.”

HPR: Do you watch anything with your family?

PS: No, my wife and my kids don’t look at those kinds of movies. They have their own preferences. I think it can be hard to see certain things with your dad. My wife is more into Brazilian and French movies and has, you know, Japanese taste.

HPR: You've described your wife Toshimi as an incredible chef. What's your favorite meal that she makes?

PS: Something called oden, a one-pot stew with boiled vegetables that you eat with hot mustard. It’s like a peasant dish, a winter dish. But you can eat it all year round. It’s really great with an ice cold beer and daikon and all those good things they have in the broth. Oden connects you to the roots of Japan and what people ate in the old days when you cooked whatever vegetables you could find and made it taste good.

HPR: You are a musician and I’ve seen a photograph of you wearing a Jesus and Mary Chain shirt and a more recent image of you in a Thin Lizzy shirt. What are the bands you can't live without?

PS: There are three bands for me, although Thin Lizzy might come in fourth. My life would not be as rich without the Beatles, the Clash and Nirvana. Those three bands have something in common: they broke new ground.

They wrote their own material and explored new avenues in music without just repeating what was previously successful. Unfortunately, Kurt Cobain took his life. He could have done so much more. But, just to dare to put together “MTV Unplugged in New York”…what a gift.

HPR: Yeah, stunning, spare and transformational. It’s a timeless artifact.

PS: When you listen to the White Album, it sounds like it could have been recorded today and not close to 60 years ago. The Beatles were workhorses who would do it every day for up to fourteen hours. Even when they were fighting like crazy, they came in and made music together. In little more than 7 years, they released 13 albums. Where do you want to go? “Revolution 9” together with “Honey Pie.” What is going on here? How the hell could they do this in three months?

With the Clash, “Sandinista!” is one of the best things I could listen to. It’s innovative and improvised. It’s so in the moment and it turned out to be gold nuggets. With both the White Album and “Sandinista!,” some were saying, “No, no, this is too much, too many different directions.”

HPR: I watched Peter Jackson’s Beatles documentary and marveled at the band’s working process. I gained a whole new level of love and appreciation for Ringo.

PS: Ringo is going to be the surviving member. As a kid, he was nearly declared dead several times. He doesn’t need to die anymore. I think he will survive to his hundredth.

HPR: I hope so. I want to wrap up by saying we avoided talking about “Fargo” because you’re going to have a great Q&A when you're here in a few days. And people are ready to hear your stories about that particular moviemaking experience.

PS: Yes! We will let some new ones out of the closet.