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Joel Kinnaman in Talks for Villain Opposite Tom Hardy in 'Child 44'

by Ben Pearson
March 14, 2013

Swedish director Daniel Espinosa made his Hollywood directing debut with Safe House last year, but it was his earlier gangster film Snabba Cash (aka Easy Money) that served as his calling card into the industry. Espinosa has been eyed for a lot of projects in the wake of Safe House's success, and first up is Child 44, a period piece thriller set in Soviet Russia starring Tom Hardy and Prometheus star Noomi Rapace. THR is now reporting that Joel Kinnaman, the future Robocop leading man who rose to fame by starring in Espinosa's Snabba Cash, is in talks to reunite with the director on this new film a the villain.

Child 44 follows a security guard and former war hero named Leo Demidov (Hardy) who unquestionably believes in Stalin's rule. But when he investigates a series of child murders, the country strips him of his rank and casts him out in order to preserve the illusion of a crime-free utopian society. Demidov struggles to find the truth behind the murders and the real reason the government refuses to acknowledge them, thinking that his wife (Rapace) is the only one left on his side when in fact she has some secrets of her own. Kinnaman would play the villain, Demidov's "ambitious and murderous nemesis."

For those of you who aren't familiar with Kinnaman's work (he plays a lead role on the AMC/Netflix detective series "The Killing"), it might please you to know legendary director/preservationist/film scholar Martin Scorsese was a huge fan of Snabba Cash and was instrumental in getting that movie a limited release in the States last year, so that should earn you a vote of confidence that Kinnaman is a talented guy to watch. I really liked his work in Snabba Cash and I'm looking forward to seeing him square off against Hardy; hopefully this is a meaty role that earns him some solid attention going forward. Cool?

Filed under Casting, Movie News

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