Most people remember Peter Stormare as the stone-faced killer in Fargo—the peroxided guy who got sick of Steve Buscemi’s yammering. But the versatile actor, born in Sweden 57 years ago, has never stopped working since that 1996 pas de deux with the wood-chipper. In fact, he’s done more than a dozen films and TV shows since completing Small Town Murder Songs, a highly original Canadian film opening here Friday (July 8).

Unlike his usual supporting roles, Stormare is in virtually every scene here as an agonized small-town sheriff in Northern Ontario. The Conestoga Lake region, where Murder Songs was shot, is home to a large number of German and Dutch Mennonites, and the star’s character, called Walter, is an apostate from the group. As a born-again Christian with a new wife (Martha Plimpton), he’s trying to wipe out his own violent past and the memory of a more hot-blooded affair with a local woman (Jill Hennessy).

“Sure, I’d like more leading roles,” Stormare says on the phone from his L.A. home. “But Hollywood is Hollywood. I could have done more action movies. After Fargo, I had a lot of offers. But I figured I could play foreign villains in big movies for a while and burn out or go for longevity.”

The Prison Break TV veteran, who has also lived in New York and Tokyo, got his start in Ingmar Bergman’s theatre company. Having grown up in a small village, he has a special affection for Walter, whose encounter with a singular crime releases his own barely buried dragons.

“If you go back 200 years, a guy like Walter could not have survived. I believe he is too sensitive for his setting and would have had artistic ambitions in a more sympathetic environment. He’s a dreamer and a misfit, like the killer who, at the end of Truman Capote’s In Cold Blood, says, ”˜I would apologize, but I don’t know who to.’ ”

This is not to say that filming Murder Songs—which does include some appropriately volatile music—wasn’t a chilling experience. For a couple of months, he and his Japanese wife and their new baby lived in wintry Listowel, Ontario, where director Ed Gass-Donnelly set up camp.

“It was pretty desolate. But if I hadn’t done it, I would never have met Mennonites and Ed and this great cast. I really loved his spare direction. He said, ”˜I don’t want everything to be clear,’ and that leaves a lot of choices for the actor, and the audience. I worked with Bergman when I was young, and he always said, ”˜Don’t forget the audience. Story is only 60 percent of the experience. The rest is emotion.’ For viewers who need everything to be obvious, there are plenty of Jennifer Aniston and Adam Sandler movies”¦But there are reasons people love David Lynch and Terry Gilliam.”

And the Coen brothers, of course. Stormare, by the way, was actually born Peter Storm. So how did he end up reverting to his family’s Italianate name?

“In Sweden,” he says with a sigh, “there are only three guys named Peter Storm. And two are actors.”

Watch the trailer for Small Town Murder Songs.