Janne Hyytiäinen

Tall, handsome, and slightly brooding Finnish actor Janne Hyytiäinen is best known for his collaborations with arthouse director and tragicomedy maestro Aki Kaurismäki. The actor and director first paired up for Kaurismäki's haunting and bitterly funny fable The Man Without a Past (2002). Hyytiäinen's part in that picture merely constituted a bit role, but circa 2006, Kaurismäki summoned him to portray a lead -- that of security guard Koistinen -- in the Hopper-esque picture Lights in the Dusk (2007). For this turn, Hyytiäinen earned frequent physical comparisons, in the American press, to Mickey Rourke -- though the actor's onscreen evocation of a hapless and naïve loser constituted a truly original creation, virtually unparalleled in American filmdom.

~ Nathan Southern, All Movie Guide