Kenneth Branagh on 'Wallander'

And Wallander's own life is rather bleak and empty.

"He seems to be going through life at sort of a disadvantage," said Branagh.

"He has this great gift, which is his detective intuition, but in every other area of his life, he clumsily stumbles from one disaster to another. He also wears a little heart on his sleeve. There is a guileless, unguarded quality that develops. He is superbly fitted in his professional life to be successful, but on the other side of his life, there is a social autism."

Even before production began, Branagh would frequent Swedish cafes in London with the series' director, Philip Martin, to get accustomed to the nation's personality.

"There is a tidy mind there," Branagh said about Swedes. "It's a tidy nation that makes you feel different when you walk their streets or go in their rooms. I wonder if they are surrounding themselves physically with a spareness and cleanliness in order to allow more space in their minds to allow themselves to deal with dark and deep [matters]."

Branagh is already on board to make more installments of "Wallander," but it won't be for a while -- he is currently in Los Angeles wearing his director's hat on Marvel Studios' "Thor," which goes into production later this year.

"I am excited," he said. "I have felt very consciously in the last few years: I will follow those things which I have been passionately interested in."

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susan.king@latimes.com