Last Tuesday, an actor who’s worked with the likes of Lars von Trier, the Coen Brothers and Wim Wenders made an appearance in North Dakota.
The “Blonde From Fargo” — which is not only his nickname from the movie but the name of his band — attended a screening of “Fargo” in Fargo at the Fargo Theatre.
That’s a lot of Fargo.
Peter Stormare, complete with a winter hat fitting the style of the movie, turned up to the Fargo Theatre. The movie is celebrating its 30th anniversary this year, and the Fargo Theatre happens to be celebrating its 100th anniversary. It was a night of celebration.
The screening was the first in the theater’s centennial film series, where it will be showing 10 movies — one from each decade of its existence. “Fargo” was a natural pick for the 1990s.
Earlier in the day, Stormare stopped by the visitors center and reunited with the actual woodchipper prop from the movie. His trip was organized and funded by Visit Fargo-Moorhead, and he stayed at Jasper Hotel in Downtown Fargo.
I showed up right around 6:00, when the doors first opened for a 7:00 movie. There was already a line congregating outside, full of people of all ages eagerly anticipating the event. The Fargo Theatre was lit up, with a sign reading “VISIT F-M PRESENTS FARGO WITH PETER STORMARE.” Just before I walked into the theater, a couple of staffers were blowing up an inflatable woodchipper to leave displayed on the sidewalk.
The place was already starting to fill up an hour before the screening. I made my way towards the front, hoping to get a seat decently close to the stage. I ended up sitting almost immediately next to a reserved section of seats on the left side of the room.
Three organists entertained the crowd as it filled out over the following hour.
Around 6:30, Stormare himself came casually strolling down the aisle. He had a small group of people accompanying him. He stood around for a few minutes before the screening, posing for selfies and signing DVDs people had brought.
The place was absolutely packed. The Fargo Theatre has a large auditorium complete with a deck; I’d been to movies there before, and usually, only a small portion of seats are filled. I once saw a movie there with only one other spectator in the giant theater. That wasn’t the case this time. Nearly every seat, front to back and above, had a person in it.
It was apparent that this crowd was passionate about the movie and had a lot of pride for its hometown. Loud cheers erupted when the movie displayed the text “Fargo, North Dakota,” and when Stormare’s name was shown in the opening credits. And, of course, when Stormare’s character appeared for the first time during a scene set in Fargo. There were even a few murmurs when “Just outside of Bismarck, North Dakota” was shown.
I’d seen this movie once before, on Dec. 16, 2020, when I was a college student at the University of Oregon and still living in Los Angeles. I hadn’t been a big fan of it at the time. I mostly associate Stormare with “Dancer in the Dark,” one of my top 20 or so favorite movies of all time. He plays an important side character in that masterpiece and sings on a train track with Björk.
With a foggy memory and more than five years having passed, I enjoyed “Fargo” a lot more on my second watch. The whole experience undeniably added to it — the novelty of watching it in Fargo, along with one of the main actors sitting within eyesight of me. But it was definitely a more entertaining movie than I originally gave it credit for.
After the credits rolled, “the legendary Peter Stormare” was introduced. He made his way onto the stage with a cast on his left foot, the crowd giving him a standing ovation before he even said a word.
Shirley Hughes, CEO of Visit Fargo-Moorhead, held a question-and-answer session with Stormare. Limited to short words and phrases in the movie, Stormare was quite talkative in real life. He had a thick Swedish accent, which you never would have known from watching the movie.
At one point, Stormare joked that he had the best Minnesotan accent among any of the actors in the movie, and that he wondered why his character didn’t have more lines when he first saw the script.
Stormare told stories from the set and his life, explaining how he went from a small village in Sweden to act in plays and eventually movies. He became a fan of the Coen brothers after seeing “Blood Simple,” and they wrote him a part for “Miller’s Crossing” but he had to back out due to a scheduling conflict in Sweden. He did a pretty accurate Steve Buscemi impression later in the Q&A.
The movie ends with Stormare riding in a police car driven by Frances McDormand’s character. They pass by the Paul Bunyan statue — which was filmed on Pembina County Highway 1, about four miles west of Bathgate, N.D. — and Stormare looks out the window. Stormare said it was his idea to cut to the statue.
This was Stormare’s first time actually seeing the movie all the way through, he told the crowd.
Of course, he talked about the famous woodchipper scene. He made a quip that in Sweden, it’s not that unusual to punish a person with a woodchipper, which prompted probably the largest laugh from the crowd all night.
Stormare also went into his philosophies about art and life. He said that his favorite medium is to fantasize; he’s “full of imagination” and feels like his brain is still 12 years old.
Hughes also took a few questions from the crowd, but there wasn’t enough time to get to nearly all of them. The final fan happened to mention “Dancer in the Dark,” segueing into a question about acting in musicals. Stormare said that generally, he likes to watch musicals but usually turns down appearing in them. He doesn’t want to get stuck doing them, he said. But he has a background in music, which prompted him to start his band “The Blonde From Fargo.”
After Stormare exited the stage, he shared an embrace with Fargo-born actress Kristin Rudrüd, who played Jean Lundergaard in the film. People then formed a line to get pictures or autographs with him, so I slipped myself right into the line.
After waiting for a couple people before me, I finally got a chance to speak to Stormare directly. He seemed pleasantly surprised as I praised his work in “Dancer in the Dark,” and he told me what an experience it was to perform a duet with Björk. He continued to talk to me as we posed for a picture, as we had to do it fairly quickly to give everyone else time. It was a brief but memorable interaction.
Acting legends don’t come around North Dakota too often, so this was a cool experience. It’s nice that North Dakota has a movie that puts it on the cultural map a little bit. Stormare’s career is one to behold, as he’s appeared in a wide variety of movies and worked with all kinds of hugely famous directors and actors. So it was a lot of fun to see him pay a visit to the real Fargo and get a chance to meet him.
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