I really want to live in New York. That's the city of my dreams.

It was announced in the spring of 2010 that he would be making his international film debut in the thriller The Darkest Hour which began filming in Moscow in June 2010 and was released in December 2011. He has five sisters one of whom is actress Melinda Kinnaman (his half-sister). He made his breakthrough in the 2009 film I skuggan av värmen and his success continued with a role in six films of the Johan Falk film series.

Joel Kinnaman (born Charles Joel Nordström; 25 November 1979) is a Swedish-American actor from Stockholm. He is best known for playing the lead role in the Swedish film Easy Money and for his role as Frank Wagner in the Johan Falk film series – a role that earned him a Guldbagge Award nomination in the "Best Supporting Actor" category. As of 2011[update] he is starring in AMC's The Killing.