Michael Nyqvist

Swedish actor (1960–2017)

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Rolf Åke Mikael Nyqvist (Swedish: [ˈnŷːkvɪst]; 8 November 1960 – 27 June 2017) was a Swedish actor. Educated at the School of Drama in Malmö, he rose to prominence domestically for playing police officer John Banck in Beck (1997-1998) and for his leading role in the 2002 film Grabben i graven bredvid.

He later received international attention for his role as Mikael Blomkvist in the 2009 film adaptations of Steig Larsson's Millennium series: The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, The Girl Who Played with Fire and The Girl Who Kicked the Hornets' Nest, as well as reprising the role in the accompanying television series. He also notably portrayed antagonists Kurt Hendricks in Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol (2011) and Viggo Tarasov in John Wick (2014). In 2004, he played the leading role in As It Is in Heaven which was nominated for Best Foreign Language Film at the 77th Academy Awards.

Early life

Rolf Åke Mikael Nyqvist was born on 8 November 1960 in Stockholm, the son of Marcello Lo Cicero, an Italian pharmacist from Florence, and a Swedish mother (born 1941). As a child, he was adopted from an orphanage by Åke Nyqvist and his wife Gerd Ellen Maria (Nordborg) Nyqvist. At age 17, Nyqvist spent his senior year of high school as an exchange student in Omaha, Nebraska. There, he took his first acting class and played a small part in the school's production of Death of a Salesman by Arthur Miller. He returned to Sweden and was accepted at ballet school, but gave it up after one year. An ex-girlfriend suggested he try theatre, and at age 24, was accepted to the Malmö Theatre Academy.

Career

Nyqvist's first major role was as police officer John Banck in the first set of Beck TV series in 1997. His first big breakthrough came in 2000 with the film Together directed by Lukas Moodysson. The movie achieved great international success and earned Nyqvist his first Guldbagge Award nomination for Best Actor in a Supporting Role for his portrayal of a misguided husband with anger issues. He later played the leading man in the Swedish romantic comedy Grabben i graven bredvid for which he won a Guldbagge Award for Best Actor in Leading Role.

In 2004, he played the lead role in As It Is in Heaven as Daniel Daréus, a conductor and musician. As It Is in Heaven was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Foreign Film. In 2006, he starred in Suddenly where Nyqvist plays Lasse – a man who must come to terms with the sudden loss of his wife and son. In the 2007 film The Black Pimpernel, Nyqvist portrays Swedish ambassador to Chile, Harald Edelstam, who helped many people flee execution by dictator Augusto Pinochet during and after the 1973 Chilean coup d'état.

Nyqvist received international attention starring as Mikael Blomkvist in The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo (Swedish title: Män som hatar kvinnor), The Girl Who Played with Fire (Swedish title: Flickan som lekte med elden), and The Girl Who Kicked the Hornets' Nest (Swedish title: Luftslottet som sprängdes). These films were adapted from the Millennium series of novels by Stieg Larsson.

He starred as a terrorist in the 2011 film, Abduction, directed by John Singleton. He was also part of the permanent ensemble at the Swedish Royal Dramatic Theatre. Nyqvist appeared in the 2011 action thriller Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol, the fourth film of the series. In the film, Nyqvist portrays a madman code-named 'Cobalt', who wants to instigate a global war between Russia and the United States because he believes a war will restore ecological balance to the planet. In 2014, he appeared in John Wick as a New York Russian mob boss who is forced to protect his son from a legendary hit man played by Keanu Reeves. In one of Nyqvist's final roles, he starred as Russian captain Sergei Andropov, one of only three survivors of a sabotaged submarine in Hunter Killer. The movie was released posthumously on 26 October 2018. He is interviewed on the DVD and Blu-ray releases; in the section on the production of the movie.

Personal life

Nyqvist described his childhood, including being placed in an orphanage, his adoption, and his search for his biological parents, in his autobiographical memoir Just After Dreaming (Swedish: När barnet lagt sig), published in 2010. In the book, he reflects on discovering his adoption and the emotional process of reconnecting with his birth parents later in life.

In 1990, he married Finnish scenographer Catharina Ehrnrooth. The couple had two children, a daughter and a son.