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| Peter Stormare and Marie Richardson in Food And Romance |
Promoting a film is hard work. There’s either far too much to do, or it’s distressingly difficult to drum up interest. Although people making films for the love of it usually retain their passion, they are often low on energy when it comes to interviews. I have never met anybody in the industry quite as enthusiastic about his work as Swedish/American actor Peter Stormare, who is determined to squeeze as much as he can into the time we have for talking about Food And Romance, and who gives the strong impression that he’d be happy to keep talking about it all day if he didn’t have people trying to move him on to his next meeting. It’s easy to see how he has made such an impression on directors he has worked with in the past, from Steven Spielberg (Minority Report) to Terry Gilliam (The Brothers Grimm, The Imaginarium Of Doctor Parnassus) and the Coen brothers (Fargo, The Big Lebowski) – harder to see how he manages to contain himself in depicting quiet characters like the one he plays in this film.
Known in Sweden as Tisdagsklubben, Food And Romance follows sixtysomething housewife Karin (Marie Richardson) through a tumultuous period in her life, after she discovers that her husband Sten has been cheating on her and starts to reassess what she really wants to be doing with her life. She takes a cookery course which reignites her longstanding passion for creative cuisine, and in the process meets Peter’s character, Hendrik, who is a chef. I tell him that I found it interesting to see a romance about characters at this stage in their lives who are still questioning what they want instead of trying to make do with what they’ve got.
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| Marie Richardson, Carina M Johansson and Sussie Ericsson |
“Yeah,” he says. “I think that the original outline for the for the movie was ingenious. And usually, you know, in French movies or American movies, they have guys robbing a bank or doing something criminal because they never got paid. And often the pension is lacking, so they do something. But here, the whole concept was to fulfil your dream. And having three women in their sixties, and a female director [Annika Appelin], and the female writer [Anna Fredriksson] and producers. So I felt like this little salmon going up a creek by myself, surrounded by octopuses.”
He catches his breath and acknowledges that octopuses probably can’t live in a creek, then continues. “It felt really, really nice to be the love interest of Marie because I'm known Marie for years. Because we grew up in the same region in the north of Sweden. I got into the academy a couple of years ahead of her, but we're always been kind of close, because we're from the same region. And we've always looked out for each other because the region is very important in Sweden, especially if you're from the north and you're dealing with southerners. I'm sure you have the same where you are.” He laughs, having previously established that I’m Scottish.
“Just to talk to her and prep and to come up with ideas, how we should develop our relationship, was really invaluable for me,” he says. “But also, the concept. I said during the movie, you know, I'm dabbling with music. I was doing music when I was young and then, you know, other things came, but then somebody told me, why don't you do music? Because if you want to do it, do it. It was Bono, actually, who told me and said ‘Because you write some cool songs.’ And then I started with music, and my life was so much more fulfilling. So I said, during the movie, when we started shooting, there's a saying that I coined, there's never too late to form a rock band.
“It's never too late because we are here on Earth for a short time. And, you know, for us that have peace in Sweden, and not being surrounded by famines or atrocities, genocides or wars, for a long time, it's pretty safe and we can always become a florist at the age of 65 if we want. And this movie has a small message. It's not very deep, but it's not shallow. That is, if you have a dream, why don't you try to conquer it and make it become reality?
“It doesn't really matter what you want to do. Just try to do it. And don't think about the economic suffering, don't think about it's not going to work. You have to try it. You have to try it. And if it doesn't work out and it leads to something else – you were put here on this planet, that's my belief – we were put here on this planet with a cause. And we are supposed to try to listen to our inner voice and to the path that we'll have to walk here on Earth, and try to be a good human being, but we have to follow our dreams, the voice within. If we don't, we might end up as very bitter and tortured and not very happy individuals.”
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| A family gathering |
I suggest that his character in this film, at least initially, doesn’t know what it is that he wants out of life.
“No,” he agrees, “but the thing is that he finds love. And it took him so long, 65 years to find love. And for some people that can be a 65 year or more search. You know, Mozart found his way in the violin when he was six or seven years old, but for some people it takes until they are 65, until they find the thing they can really love. And it's the first time that can really express his love and take love.”
I ask if that was where he began the process of fleshing out the character.
“Yeah,” he nods. “Because he's been around the world. And I'm married to a Japanese woman. I've worked in Japan a lot of times and the director Annika said, well, the backstory of this guy is that he worked abroad in Japan to learn how to become a chef, and I said ‘Are you kidding me? I worked in Japan a lot.’ ‘You did?’ And she didn't know about my background, but it aligns so perfectly. And I said, ‘But I found love in Japan.’ But this guy I can understand, he's been looking for love in a lot of places. He's not really been loved. I'm sure he had relationships, but he put his love into making food, like many chefs.
“I know a couple of chefs, that's their love. But the emotional love is something different, the love of the heart. And, yeah, it takes time. We always think we’ll find it when we’re 16,17, but it's not always true. You have to wait maybe a little longer. But the human love is, you know, the most beautiful thing in life. And it took him 65 years to find it. But also the message is, you know, the three girls, Marie, Sussie [Ericsson] and Carina [M Johansson], they all set up to conquer their dream, and to say goodbye to their past lives.
“We wouldn't have reached this point without living our lives as we did. But we have to say goodbye now. And hopefully, if we're lucky, we’ll get 20 more years, but if we look back, 20 years have gone by pretty fast. So we have to act today, we have to do something. That, I think, is the simple little message of this movie. From a male perspective, I want to say it's never too late to start a rock band. If your neighbours say ‘You’re too old to play rock, and metal,’ you can say, ‘It's none of your concern. I would like to play some heavy metal before I die.’”
There’s lots of gorgeous looking food in the film but, he says, he doesn’t get the chance to cook much in day to day life.
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| Busy in the kitchen |
“I'm living with a woman who is a Japanese chef, so I’m hardly even allowed anymore to fry an egg. Because my oil is splattering too much on the walls on the side. But I have friends who are chefs and I stole a little here and there, from their love for food. But also, for both of my friends, they haven't really found a human love. And they always looking for that human love. And the one who is older seems like it's never going to happen. He's happy with with his occupation, but I think that his heart is bleeding a little bit because he's waiting for it, and as I said, you know, for some people it takes a long, long time until they find it. But you can't force it. It will come.”
He’s had a really varied film career, and I ask if he chooses roles on the basis that they give him new things to explore.
“Yeah, of course in some cases,” he says. “But sometimes also when a friend has an independent movie, they need somebody to help them out and raise some money and I'm more like, in my own way, the production company. We're doing a movie in the spring next year, and I have a couple of scripts I want to direct before I close my eyes. And yeah, it's more now to satisfy my own cravings which I've had all my life. I have ideas and things I kept in a drawer, and now If I can see some of them are good. Some of them are really bad, so toss them aside, but the good ones I keep working at, and hopefully before my career is over, I'll direct a couple of movies. And I'll do some more comedy. I would love to do some more, because I like comedy. But in this country, they love me because I'm a good bad guy.” He grins.
Food And Romance is in US cinemas now.
