Detailed Biography

Peter Stormare is a Swedish film, stage, voice and television actor as well as a theatrical director, playwright and musician.

Early life

Stormare was born in Kumla, Närke, Sweden, the son of Teodolinda and Renato Storm. He grew up in Arbrå, Hälsingland, Sweden as Peter Ingvar Rolf Storm, but changed his surname when he discovered he shared it with a senior student at the acting academy. His original choice of name, Retep Mrots , was rejected. Just like "storm" , "stormare" is a Swedish word, meaning "stormer".

Career

Stormare began his career with the Swedish Royal Dramatic Theatre, to which he belonged for eleven years. In 1990 he took a leading position 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 discovered by international audiences for his critically acclaimed role as a quiet and ruthless villain in Fargo , and later played a sleazy, unlicensed "eye-doctor" named 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 portrayed Uli Kunkel in the 1998 film The Big Lebowski, as well as playing Lev Andropov, the Russian Cosmonaut in 1998's Armageddon, and Alexei in the 2003 film 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 mob boss John Abruzzi. Stormare was originally cast for the role of Fido, but upon being cast in Prison Break, he opted out of the film.

He also was the voice of Mattias Nilsson in the video game Mercenaries: Playground of Destruction, the voice of Isair in the computer game Icewind Dale 2, and the voice of Johann Strauss in Quake 4. In February 2006, he starred as Wolfgang in Volkswagen's VDub series of television commercials. He once again voices Mattias Nilsson in Mercenaries 2: World in Flames.

Stormare is contracted to play the main character in the Swedish upcoming movie Svartvattnet, which was filmed in Sweden and Norway during 2007. Stormare was also offered a role in the ABC television series Lost for a period of one year, which he later declined. In the 2007 film Premonition he played the character Dr Roth. In April 2007, he appeared in an episode of crime drama CSI: Crime Scene Investigation, "Ending Happy."

In December 2007, Stormare participated in the Swedish reality show "Stjärnorna på slottet" along with Britt Ekland, Arja Saijonmaa, Jan Malmsjö and Magnus Härenstam. He appears in Command & Conquer: Red Alert 3 as Dr. Zelinsky, a Russian scientist who builds a time machine.

Stormare runs his own record label, called StormVox.

Personal life

Stormare divides his time between the United States and Sweden. He is divorced from his first wife, actress Karen Sillas. 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, Dallerpölsa och småfåglar. Stormare is the godfather of Gustaf Skarsgård, the son of equally-acclaimed Swedish actor Stellan Skarsgård, and plays in a band called Blonde From Fargo.