Is anyone having a better time on TV at the moment than Joel Kinnaman?
Not only has the actor unleashed his villainous side in Netflix crime drama Jo Nesbo's Detective Hole, but as of this week, he's simultaneously starring in two Apple TV shows: For All Mankind season 5 and Imperfect Women.
Both on paper and onscreen, the latter two couldn't be less alike. For All Mankind season 5 has jumped forward to an alternate 2013, and you'd hardly recognize Kinnaman even if you were staring him in the face. Former astronaut Edward is now an old, frail pensioner, addled with stage 3 cancer after years of radiation exposure.
Cut to Imperfect Women, and it's an entirely different story. Here, Kinnaman plays Robert (who thankfully looks exactly like the actor Joel Kinnaman), husband of Nancy (Kate Mara). We find out that she has been killed in episode 1, having been having an affair with Mary's (Elisabeth Moss) husband Howard (Corey Stoll) behind his back. Oof.
It's surely a lot for one man to juggle, particularly considering that I've seen him at two separate press junkets in as many weeks. But according to him, the various "challenges" are pretty much welcome.
'It gets to you after a while, but I feel blessed to do projects with such vast difference'
"I'm not missing the four hours of makeup prosthetics every day," Kinnaman tells me about For All Mankind season 5. "It gets to you after a while, but it's really fun to do. I feel so blessed to get to do roles and projects that are so vastly different from each other, and it just challenges me in so many different ways.
That's certainly one way of putting it. Fans have already complained about For All Mankind season 5 having a slow start, but I think it's leading to something cataclysmic. In short, it's all likely been a lot of effort behind the scenes.
But how did Kinnaman balance this with Imperfect Women? "I feel it's more and more important that I do things that are increasingly different than what I've done before, to keep it interesting and a little scary," he continues.
"I find that when you've had success and worked for a long time, it's easy to get a little too comfortable. All of a sudden, you're not particularly nervous coming onto set anymore. So I have to find ways of making it a little scary. That's something that I'm increasingly realizing. I think that how you choose roles becomes really important in that way, to choose roles that are a little scary where you feel like you might f**k it up."
With three certified bangers currently out on two different streamers, I think it's safe to say that Kinnaman has nailed it — and you should absolutely binge them all.
