Joel Kinnaman is best known as one of the leads in the American version of TV show The Killing, but this month he stars in his first bona fide blockbuster, playing the title character in Jose Padhila’s remake of Robocop. We caught up with Kinnaman on the film’s Toronto suit to discuss landing the role, wearing the suit and perfecting the voice, and to talk about those inevitable comparisons with Paul Verhoeven’s original.
What made you want to do movie?
Jose Padhila, the director. When I first heard Robocop was going to be remade. I said “Yeah, that’s interesting, I’ll probably watch that at some point, but I’m not interested at all to be in it.” Then I found out that Jose wanted to do it and meet me, which I was very flattered by. I followed his work from way before he was going to do this movie, and I was very impressed with both his political analysis of Brazil and the style of filmmaking. The quality of his action that he blends with a very strong visual sense and very strong acting. For me he’s one of the big young directors. After I met him and he told me his vision for this movie, it was something that I really wanted to do. And I had to fight for it. It wasn’t an easily won audition. I had to audition three times. It was while I was filming The Killing up in Vancouver, so I was going up and down.
At this point in my career, I’d done a TV show that had given me some visibility in the States, but I was still hearing from directors that were interested in doing a movie with me that they couldn’t have me in the lead because I wasn’t a name, even though I was the best person for the part. It’s not bankable – that whole rhetoric. So at some point I wanted to take a step into a bigger movie so that I could get to a position so that I could be of help to a director that wanted to get a movie made. To a certain degree, as an actor, the only way we have to define our artistry is by our choices. What choices we make. Because we’re not authors of our own projects. So of course you want to have as many options as possible. So I wanted a bigger movie that would elevate me hopefully to some degree. But I still really, really hope that that opportunity will be something with quality, and I felt that this was that.
When did you realise this was the right project?
I was confident from the get-go. When I read the first script – the first draft – I didn’t feel that 100%. But Jose explained that that was a very rough outline. While we were getting close to shooting, after his first draft, I realised it was really going to be his vision. We actually had a very impressive preparation period where he had the whole cast for two-and-a-half/three weeks where we went through the whole script and worked through every scene and pretty much re-wrote the whole script… Jose is a very confident man, and he has a strong vision. I think he won a couple of big battles and gained the confidence of the people putting the money into this movie. He was able to really have that process. So we took away everything that we didn’t like. Everything that was cheesy, that felt adolescent, that didn’t feel mature. Because that’s what we set out to do. Not to do a superhero movie, but to do an adult, mature film, that takes itself seriously, and really wants to portray... it’s a tragedy. It’s an action tragedy.
What research did you before the shoot?
I read a couple of books about neuroscience and the relationship between the mind and the body. There are some philosophical questions that are raised in this movie – Where is the soul? Where is the personality? Is it just in the mind or is it in the body? What do you lose of your personality when you lose your body? And when you have a body that mimics a lost limb. The philosophy of this is that the phantom memory is recreated digitally and manifested in the body. So there are signatures of Alex’s body language that are expressed in his robotic body. But in terms of research, it was was more like walking through the script over and over again… I did more research for Alex before he became Robocop. And the reality of his life. That was what I was preparing for. Then after the accident happened I’m sort of finding a way to deal with that like Alex was doing.
What was it like the first time you put the suit on?
It was really uncomfortable. We did it in stages. So first we tried on some of the head piece and skull cast. It was a process that took three months. But when I finally had the whole thing on, I was really excited. I’d been at home trying to sketch out how my movement was going to be and so on. But I realised I had to throw all that out the window because the suit had its own movement. So that was what I was focussing on the most at that time – finding my way in, to see what was possible.
How much stunt-work have you been doing?
I have to do most of my stunts because we realised that the movement pattern that I had decided for the character was hard to mimic in the battle situations. So I’ve been doing most of that, which has been pretty taxing.
Was it difficult to maintain focus in that suit?
There are always elements when you’re filming that take you away from what you want to do, which is to be in the moment and be listening and be a present actor. Sometimes you have a set up where the person you’re talking to is behind the camera, so there are always those limitations. This is difficult in another way. When you’re going into an emotional scene, I need my space and time to focus, but since I’m wearing this suit, there are always loads of adjustments that have to be made, so right before the camera starts rolling I have people picking on me and chipping away on my helmet, so that makes it more difficult to really go to that place and hit the mark that you set out to hit. But as far as the inhibitions that the suit gives, it is an extra element of concentration that is required, but in one way it’s helpful. I’m a physical actor in that I start with a physical sketch of the character. I find it easier to find inspiration from the outside in. If I find the character’s tensions and the way he carries himself or looks, that’s going to affect how I talk. So that’s how I start to create that person. The suit gives you a lot of those first suggestions.
How did you go about finding Robocop’s voice?
There are some transitions in the movie that have an effect on how I talk. I change the way I speak throughout the film. Different stages of being Robocop. So I made a point to find the differences in those.
Do you say any of his signature lines?
We kept one. We’ve tried to stay away from all those references, because we’re trying to make a very different movie in a completely different universe that does not have Verhoeven’s tone. So it feels like that would be untruthful to what we’re doing. But we kept one...
Robocop is released worldwide throughout February.
Chris Tilly is the Entertainment Editor for IGN in the UK and can be found on both Twitter and MyIGN.
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