Joel Kinnaman is well known as having an excellent physique. It’s easy to wonder how he maintains his body and whether or not he is vegan.
There is no evidence of Joel Kinnaman being vegan. There are reports of him enjoying herring, which would confirm that he is not, though these are from several years ago. He clearly eats a controlled diet to maintain his physique but there are few sources that specifically mention his food intake.
For more on what we do know about Kinnaman’s eating habits and his intensive workouts, read on.
Diet
We don’t know a great deal about Joel Kinnaman’s diet, beyond that he clearly eats sensibly and has a high protein intake to maintain his muscular physique.
An interview with Olivia Munn, from the period while she was dating Kinnaman in the early 2010s, mentioned that the actor has a love of pickled herring.
Kinnaman was born and raised in Stockholm, Sweden, and Munn was probably referring to the traditional Swedish dish surströmming. Surströmming is Swedish for “sour herring” and has been around since at least the 16th Century, likely to preserve fish through the winter when it is difficult to catch.
The dish has a particularly pungent smell, so much so that cans of it are usually opened and eaten outside to avoid the odor filling the home. Munn wasn’t keen on the dish but apparently nor are the majority of Swedes.
Many eat the fermented fish so they can hold a surströmmingsskiva, a party dedicated to eating the dish. While they could probably hold a party without needing to eat rotten fish, it’s traditional in Sweden to gather in this way.
There isn’t much more information available on Kinnaman’s eating habits and the interview with Munn took place around 2013, so a lot might have changed in the meantime. If he still enjoys surströmming, we can say with confidence that he is not vegan.
Fitness Routine
Whatever Joel Kinnaman eats, it’s clear he must eat a well-controlled diet to maintain his defined physique. There’s more to staying in peak shape than diet and Kinnaman has a notoriously diverse workout history.
During preparation for his role in “Altered Carbon”, Kinnaman and the crew were trying to choose a fighting style that he could learn for his character.
After trying Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu, Kinnaman says he felt a natural inclination for the style and became obsessed with practicing the grappling based martial art. He has talked about how much he enjoys the training but how it can be humbling to be folded up “like a paper clip” by a 65-year-old black belt.
The actor likes to keep his exercise routine fresh and regularly adjusts his focus to be suitable for his current on-screen character.
In 2015’s “Run All Night”, Kinnaman played a former professional boxer, albeit an unsuccessful one, so he felt it was important that he received some professional training in order to look legitimate.
He reached out to a Swedish friend who was on Floyd Mayweather’s “Money Team”, who set Kinnaman up with New York trainer Don Saxby at the legendary Gleason’s Gym. Kinnaman trained intensively with Saxby for two months, making sure he could throw a good punch onscreen.
Before playing RoboCop in the 2014 remake of the same name, Kinnaman was put through his paces by personal trainer Bobby Strom, who focused on getting Joel as strong as possible for the role.
This training included different circuits every day, never repeating the same workout twice to ensure the “Future of Law Enforcement” was appropriately intimidating onscreen, even if all that hard work was ultimately hidden by a costume.
So while we don’t have a full picture of Joel Kinnaman’s diet, we know that he puts fitness at the forefront and that his apparent love of surströmming means he probably isn’t vegan.