Joel Kinnaman‘s upcoming TV show was perfectly cast, with the actor on top form in a gritty and realistic interrogation room where tension is not just a tactic but the goal. Not being an easily-typecast actor, Kinnaman does not tend to stick within a single genre, instead bringing his signature intensity to morally-complex characters in sci-fi, drama, and crime. Joel Kinnaman’s best movies and TV shows have been extremely varied, but his upcoming series might feature his most intense scenes yet.
Kinnaman’s upcoming series High Value Target: the Hunt for Saddam sees him playing a CIA analyst who takes on the job of interrogating the newly-captured Saddam Hussein. Of all the TV shows premiering in 2026, this is one of the most intriguing, having been compared to Netflix’s crime masterpiece Mindhunter and Jessica Chastain’s 91% Rotten Tomatoes movie, Zero Dark Thirty, which follows the hunt for Osama bin Laden. The show’s trailer features both explosive action and moments of tension rivaling Mindhunter‘s infamous interviews, which makes sense given the show’s inspiration.
Joel Kinnaman’s Character In High Value Target Is Based On A Real CIA Analyst
Like Mindhunter, High Value Target is centered on an interrogation, and is based on the memoir of a key character in the story. In the case of High Value Target, this is John Nixon, the CIA analyst and expert on Saddam Hussein, who was asked to both identify and question him. Nixon later wrote a book about his experiences, titled Debriefing the President: The Interrogation of Saddam Hussein, which has formed the basis for the series. Like Zero Dark Thirty, the show looks set to explore the emotional toll such a task has on the people involved.
Hussein was rumored to employ body doubles, which is why identification was so important.
While bin Laden was killed both in real life and in Zero Dark Thirty, Saddam Hussein was captured alive, and interviewing him required a person who could handle speaking to the charismatic authoritarian leader. Scenes like this play into Kinnaman’s strengths as an actor, as many of his best characters are about to take on monumental tasks while having the exact skills needed to carry them out. Altered Carbon‘s Takeshi Kovacs has to solve a murder, he plays a conflicted astronaut in For All Mankind, and Kinnaman’s most underrated performance saw him playing a presidential candidate in House of Cards.
High Value Target Marks Joel Kinnaman’s Third TV Show To Release In 2026
Kinnaman’s acting career has gone from strength to strength in recent years and while not all of his movies have been successes, like the ill-fated DC Comics spinoff, Suicide Squad, his TV shows have been some of his greatest projects, introducing new facets to the actor. After starring as the unconventional detective Stephen Holden in The Killing, he appeared in crime thrillers like Hanna and Brothers by Blood, and is now combining action with understated subtlety in High Value Target.
The show is far from the only one that Kinnaman is starring in this year, with two other TV series being released shortly beforehand. He stole the show as a corrupt detective in the Nordic Noir Jo Nesbo’s Detective Hole, but the series repeated Kinnaman’s disappointing cyberpunk failure by recasting him, with the focus shifting to a different character. Still, starring in 2026’s Imperfect Women took Kinnaman back to his crime drama roots, even if the show is not as gritty. Now, High Value Target is setting him up for greater success by playing to his strengths.
Kinnaman’s ability to give tense silences a particular mood served him well in Altered Carbon, in which he did not always need to speak in order to get results. Great interrogators can allow their subject to incriminate themselves by simply allowing them to talk, and Kinnaman’s ability to make even the longest silence into a dialogue all its own will be a valuable asset in High Value Target, which will arrive on TNT on September 13.
- Birthdate
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November 25, 1979
- Birthplace
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Stockholm, Sweden
