Read news from:
Austria
SHARE
COPY LINK

ENTERTAINMENT

INTERVIEW: ‘It’s time the world laughed with Sweden’

US-native Greg Poehler tells The Local why he turned his Swedish life into a TV show, that comparisons to his comedian sister Amy are inevitable, and why Swedes should be known for their sense of humour.

Published: 17 December 2013 09:37 CET
INTERVIEW: 'It's time the world laughed with Sweden'
Greg Poehler in a scene from Welcome to Sweden. Photo: David Einar/TV4

Even if he doesn’t like it, 39­-year­-old Greg Poehler is best known as the brother of US actress Amy Poehler. But all that may change early next year when his new show ­Welcome to Sweden ­hits TV screens around the world.

Poehler, a seven­-year veteran expat in Sweden, wrote the programme based on his own life in Stockholm, and it promises big-­name cameos from the likes of Amy Poehler herself, Will Ferrell (who has a Swedish wife and accompanying Swedish summer cottage), Gene Simmons, Patrick Duffy, and Swedish stars Malin Åkerman, Josephine Bornebusch and Lena Olin.

Poehler plays the lead role, produced, and is currently in the final editing process for a premiere on Sweden’s commercial broadcaster TV4, with NBC to follow, not to mention a host of other countries. The show, he says, will mark many Americans’ first encounter with Stockholm, besides perhaps the gloomy Millennium books by Stieg Larsson.

And it’s about time the subject matter is a little lighter, he adds.

“I think the world is ready to laugh with Sweden,” he tells The Local. “I’m hesitant to say I want the world to laugh at Sweden… Sweden is coming out pretty well in this.”

“The show is like a postcard of Stockholm at its best. The weather is incredible, the sun is always shining…  perhaps Sweden comes out a little too well. Sweden has this darker reputation with all the Bergman films… perhaps it’s deserved, I’m not sure. But my plan for season two is to have an all­-winter, all­-dark season to show the other side of it all.”

The show will be based on Poehler’s experiences when he first came to Sweden in the middle of the summer seven years ago, a choice of timing he muses may have been a ploy by his then­-girlfriend to get him to fall in love with Sweden. The ploy evidently worked, as Poehler now calls Sweden home and he has graduated from boyfriend to husband.

While Poehler’s character plays an accountant called Bruce (he was a lawyer in real life before taking up show biz), the majority of the show aims to give a realistic look into Poehler’s life in Sweden as a love refugee. With an international audience, he was forced to avoid stereotypes and in-­jokes, and instead focus on life in Sweden from a stranger-­in-­a-­strange-­land perspective.

“But we do go into a few things, like Swedes not talking to their neighbours, for example,” he adds.

Poehler made the leap from lawyer to laughter around two years ago, when a friend almost literally pushed him on stage at a stand­-up comedy gig. His success on stage pushed him to follow something he “secretly always wanted to do” -­ entertainment -­ a road his big sister Amy had taken long ago.

The older Poehler has charmed world audiences in Parks and Recreation and Saturday Night Live, and is one of the big draw cards of Welcome to Sweden, in which she will play herself in five episodes. Her kid brother admits that she played a crucial role in getting the show going.

“I’m not naïve enough to think my sister’s name and connections weren’t helpful and didn’t get me invited to the party, but I think whether I get to stay at the party is up to me,” he says, adding that he doesn’t mind if she stays in the limelight for now.

“I can’t start getting upset that the headlines all say ‘Amy Poehler’s brother is doing a show’. If I was just some guy it wouldn’t be a headline. The headline would be ‘NBC buys rights to a Swedish show’ and no­ one would really care. I get it, that’s why they’re interested, and if that makes more people watch it then that’s great,” he explains.

“But if they’re tuning in to see me fail, I think they’ll be disappointed.”

While the aim is to draw smiles, the US comic admits that life for an immigrant in Sweden isn’t all fun and games. He was sure to include home truths in the show. He admits that in real life, he can’t think of a time he was invited to dinner party by a Swede who he didn’t know through his wife, for example.

“We do have some surprisingly low and sad moments,” he says. “Life as an immigrant in Sweden is a hard adjustment, finding a job, friends, assimilating into society…  I think those who have done this, those who live here as expats, they’ll relate and be proud of the portrayal. A lot of the humour comes from recognizable situations for those who live here.”

So does the American feel any kind of pressure specifically representing the expats in Sweden for a global audience?

“I didn’t feel any pressure before you asked, and I resent the question quite frankly,” he says with a lengthy laugh.

“I can say that if the readers of The Local don’t like it then I really am in trouble.”

By Oliver Gee

Member comments

Log in here to leave a comment.
Become a Member to leave a comment.

MUSIC

Meet the Spanish rapper bringing flamenco and bossa nova into hip-hop

Spanish rapper C. Tangana was taking a big risk when he started mixing old-fashioned influences like flamenco and bossa nova into his hip-hop -- but it's this eclectic sound that has turned him into a phenomenon on both sides of the Atlantic.

Published: 23 May 2021 08:38 CEST
Meet the Spanish rapper bringing flamenco and bossa nova into hip-hop
Spanish rapper Anton Alvarez known as 'C. Tangana' poses in Madrid on April 29, 2021. Photo: Javier Soriano/AFP

The 30-year-old has emerged as one of the world’s biggest Spanish-language stars since his third album “El Madrileno” — the Madrilenian — came out in February. That ranks him alongside his superstar ex-girlfriend Rosalia, the Grammy-winning Catalan singer with whom he has co-written several hits.

C. Tangana, whose real name is Anton Alvarez Alfaro, has come a long way since a decade ago when he became known as a voice of disillusioned Spanish youth in the wake of the financial crisis.These days his rap is infused with everything from reggaeton and rumba to deeply traditional styles from Spain and Latin America, with a voice often digitised by autotune.

“It’s incredible that just when my music is at its most popular is exactly when I’m doing something a bit more complex, more experimental and less
trendy,” he told AFP in an interview.

And he is unashamed to be appealing to a wider audience than previously: his dream is now to make music “that a young person can enjoy in a club or someone older can enjoy at home while cooking”.

‘People are tired’

The rapper, who sports a severe semi-shaved haircut and a pencil moustache, has worked with Spanish flamenco greats including Nino De Elche, Antonio Carmona, Kiko Veneno, La Hungara and the Gipsy Kings.

In April he brought some of them together for a performance on NPR’s popular “Tiny Desk Concert” series, which has already drawn nearly six million
views on YouTube.

Shifting away from trap, one of rap’s most popular sub-genres, and venturing into a more traditional repertoire was a dangerous move — especially for someone with a young fanbase to whom rumba, bossa nova and bolero sound old-fashioned.

“I think people are tired. They’ve had enough of the predominant aesthetic values that have previously defined pop and urban music,” he said.

Parts of his latest album were recorded in Latin America with Cuban guitarist Eliades Ochoa of Buena Vista Social Club, Uruguayan
singer-songwriter Jorge Drexler, Mexican folk artist Ed Maverick and Brazil’s Toquinho, one of the bossa nova greats.

“What struck me most everywhere I went was the sense of tradition and the way people experienced the most popular music, and I don’t mean pop,” he said.

A new direction

C. Tangana started out in 2006 rapping under the name Crema. When the global economic crisis swept Spain a few years later, hard-hitting trap was
the perfect way to voice the angst of his generation. But after more than a decade of rapping, things changed.

“When I was heading for my 30s, I hit this crisis, I was a bit fed up with what I was doing… and decided to give voice to all these influences that I
never dared express as a rapper,” he said.

The shift began in 2018 with “Un veneno” (“A poison”) which came out a year after his big hit “Mala mujer” (“Bad woman”).

And there was a return to the sounds of his childhood when he used to listen to Spanish folk songs at home, raised by a mother who worked in
education and a journalist father who liked to play the guitar. The Latin American influences came later.

“It started when I was a teenager with reggaeton and with bachata which were played in the first clubs I went to, which were mostly Latin,” he said.

Studying philosophy at the time, he wrote his first raps between stints working in call centres or fast-food restaurants.

As to what comes next, he doesn’t know. But one thing he hopes to do is collaborate with Natalia Lafourcade, a Mexican singer who dabbles in folk, rock and pop — another jack of all musical trades.

SHOW COMMENTS