Michael Nyqvist

Rolf Åke Mikael Nyqvist (Swedish: [ˈnŷːkvɪst]; 8 November 1960 – 27 June 2017), better known as Michael Nyqvist, was a Swedish actor. Educated at the School of Drama in Malmö, he became well known for playing police officer Banck in the 1997–1998 Martin Beck TV series and for his leading role in the 2001 film Grabben I graven bredvid. He was internationally recognized for his role as Mikael Blomkvist in the acclaimed Millennium series and as the lead villains in Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol (as Kurt Hendricks) and John Wick (as Viggo Tarasov). 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.
== Biography ==
Nyqvist described his childhood, and his quest as an adult to find his biological parents, in his autobiographical novel, Just After Dreaming.
In 1990, he married the Finnish scenographer Catharina Ehrnrooth. They had two children—Ellen, born in 1991, and Arthur, who was born in 1996.
=== Early life ===
Rolf Åke Mikael Nyqvist was born on 8 November 1960 in Stockholm, the son of a Swedish mother and an Italian father (from Florence).[1][2] As a young child, he was adopted from an orphanage.[3] At age 17, Nyqvist spent his senior year of high school as an exchange student in Omaha, Nebraska.[4] 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.[3] 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.
Category:Cast of John Wick
Category:Actors