Joel Kinnaman developed a "weird eating disorder" when he was at school.
Joel Kinnaman
The 38-year-old actor had a "strange" period of falling out with his friends at his English school in Stockholm, which led to him feeling "a lot of anxiety", prompting his father to suggest a year abroad to regroup.
He said: "I did have a really strange year. I was getting into a lot of trouble back home in Stockholm. My whole group of friends, when I tried to leave them, they turned on me.
"Then, all of my new friends, as soon as they ran into any of my old friends, then my old friends would beat up my new friends and rob them.
"They would leave me unscathed, just to really rub it in. Then, no one wanted to be my friend. It was a very lonely time.
"It was a period of a lot of anxiety and I developed this weird eating disorder.
"I was not feeling very good. So, we came up with this idea that I could go be an exchange student for a year."
But the 'Altered Carbon' actor was unimpressed when he first met his "odd" hosts after landing in Texas and then realised he'd be sharing the house with 12 dogs.
He told Rolling Stone magazine: "They picked me up from the airport. They were both under five-foot; they were really short people. They just did not talk.
"I mean, she talked the s**t out of me while I was in the car. He didn't say a word for the entire hour from the airport. It was really stressing me out when we got to the house.
"When they put the key in the door, it was like a zoo inside.
"I felt like Indiana Jones when he was lowered into the snake pit. And this was my big adventure to get away from all the trouble?
"I remember when the airplane was coming in to land, I was looking at all the houses and there were so many swimming pools. Coming from Sweden, having a swimming pool was super exotic. I was like, 'Oh, god, I hope they have a swimming pool.'
"They were so far away from having a swimming pool, you have no idea. They were just really odd people."
But things improved for Joel when he attended the local high school and impressed with his sporting skills.
He said: "I played a lot of sports in Sweden, so I soon became the captain of the soccer team.
"While we were doing drills, I was kicking the ball pretty deep. The football team was playing on the field next to ours. The football coach came over and was like, 'Hey, you! Are you that Swedish guy? You think you could kick a real football?'
"They just shut down the soccer practice and I walked over to the football field and I started kicking the football and they kept moving the ball back and they were like, 'Well, you just broke the school record. So, you wanna be a kicker?' Then, I was the kicker on the football team. I was OK. I kicked a some 45-yard field goals, but I also missed a couple."
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