DOWN WITH PANTS!

I am so glad that Volkswagen hired veteran character actor Peter Stormare to play VDub in their latest series of commercials. It is a genius job of casting, albeit an obvious job, to cast him as the German (representing Deutschland) to "unpimp" these automobiles.

Peter Stormare was born as Peter Storm in his home country of Sweden. He was forced to change his stage name early in his career, because there already was a Peter Storm in his acting academy, thus foiling what could have been a very successful career as an anchorman in Sioux Falls. As Stormare, Peter went on to star in a couple of Swedish films and television shows before making his first appearance as a neurochemist with Robin Williams in 1990's Scientology friendly flick, Awakenings.

Stormare has gone on to star in over fifty TV shows and films usually playing creeps, thugs or idiots of eastern European descent such as his roles as Dieter in The Lost World: Jurassic Park, Lev Andropov in Armageddon, Serge Muscat in Chocolat, Alexei in Bad Boys II and Gaear Grimsrud in 1996's Fargo where he hooked up with the Coen brothers. In 1998, the Coen brothers cast Stormare in what would become a career defining performance...

Stormare will forever live on in cinematic history for his performance in The Big Lebowski as the nihilist Uli Kunkel, AKA Logjammin's Karl Hungus. Blessed with lines like "We believe in nothing, Lebowski. Nothing. And tomorrow we come back and we cut off your johnson..." and "we don't care. we still want ze money, Lebowski, or we fuck you up", Stormare made the most of having to act with Flea and with apologies to the rug, really tied the room together whenever he was on screen.

In fact, he really ties the room together as Uli, VDub, Dieter or even Slippery Pete in a Seinfeld episode I saw the other day. I Heart Peter Stormare. He can fix my cable anytime.

(Sorry Cinerobot for stealing your "I Heart" somebody series.)