Mikael Persbrandt

Mikael Persbrandt, most famous for his role as an antisocial police detective on the Swedish TV series "Beck," is also an accomplished stage actor and well-known film actor. Persbrandt studied ballet for a year and a half before a small part in director Ingmar Bergman's stage production of "King Lear" ignited his interest in acting. From 1992 to 1994 he portrayed Ola Simonssen, a photographer with a shady past, on "Rederiet," a long-running Swedish soap opera set in a busy shipping port. After spending much of the '90s appearing in minor TV roles in series like the police drama "Anna Holt-polis," Persbrandt landed a major role in 1997 when he was cast as the abrupt and antisocial detective Gunvald Larsson in the crime series "Beck." Based on the popular series of novels by married authors Maj Sjowall and Per Wahloo, the show followed the lives of the title officer and his colleagues; Persbrandt appeared on the series for the entirety of the first season and has since became a regular guest actor. With a steady TV and theater career already in place, Persbrandt branched out into film in the 2000s. He won critical acclaim for his portrayal of a suicidal father in the road trip drama "Day and Night"; and appeared in the Oscar-winning 2010 film "In a Better World" as Anton, a Swedish doctor whose peaceful nature threatens to tear his family apart.