A Swedish 'Rain Man'

The most popular movie in Sweden of early 1989 is being prepared for the theater stage. 

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  Robert Gustafsson took on the role as Raymond Babbitt in the 2103 Swedish theater production of “Rain Man.” For his role in ”Hundraåringen som klev ut genom fönstret och försvann,” he had to sit many hours in make-up every day to be everything from age 20 to 100. Eva von Bahr and Love Larson, the film's makeup artists, were nominated for an Oscar in 2016.

• Swedish Rain Man
  Robert Gustafsson takes over Dustin Hoffman’s Oscar-winning role when the film “Rain Man” becomes theater at Rival in Stockholm in January next year. Jonas Karlsson plays his brother (Tom Cruise had the part in the movie).
  “Rain Man” was the most watched movie in Sweden during the spring of 1989, it was nominated for 8 Oscars and received four, among them for best movie and also for best actor (Dustin Hoffman). Now it’s Robert Gustafsson’s turn to play the autistic Raymond, a man capsulated in his own world. Says Gustafsson: “All people, regardless of background or personally, have a gram or two of these syndromes and letter combinations inside of them. Now it’s all about pulling that out and accept it. For me it’s a lot to do with control. I can get stuck in things, close a door and then stand there and fidget with it for two minutes. Often it’s when I am done with some larger project, like writing a script. Instead of putting a period mark, I just write dot, dot, dot…”
  For Jonas Karlsson, taking on the role of the brother was not as easy a choice. “At first I thought ‘why do this’ but then I read the script and the story captured me, this young man who discovers his brother and the journey they go on together. This is a play about being human and about having a brother.”

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  Swedish actor and author Jonas Karlsson. (Here photographed at the Gothenburg book fair in 2010/Wikimedia Commons)