By Katherine Tulich
“Masterpiece Mystery:
Wallander III" Sept. 9, 16 and 23, 9 p.m., PBS
In the first episode of the new Wallander series, Kenneth Branagh made sure he wrote the word “smile" on his script. “I figured it was the one opportunity in three films that I get to do it, so I better remember how to move my muscles upwards," the actor says with a laugh as he mugs a strained smile.
For anyone familiar with the Swedish noir detective from Henning Mankell’s moody and contemplative crime thrillers, the central character Kurt Wallander does very little smiling. A solitary figure with a dogged and singular determination, the seemingly perennially depressed small-town cop solves grisly crimes in a grimly beautiful Swedish countryside. Through nine books, he has become a beloved figure, and while there have been Swedish film and TV interpretations of Mankell’s books, it’s British actor Branagh who has memorably imprinted the character worldwide through a limited television series, the third of which premiers Sept. 9 as part of Masterpiece Mystery on PBS stations.
“There is great affection towards the character," says Branagh as he sips a cup of hot English breakfast tea on a balcony overlooking the pool at the Beverly Hilton Hotel in Los Angeles after a long day of interviews. “There is no machismo swagger about him.. He has this open-wound quality, and he takes all of these crimes personally. He has a sense of quiet but intense moral outrage. He’s appalled and surprised when people commit these terrible acts of cruelty, and he has an empathy for the victim that is almost dangerous to him."
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