Joona Jasper Pääkkönen is a Finnish film actor and entrepreneur. After his over two-decade career in Finnish movies his international breakthrough role was in 2015 in historical drama television series Vikings as Halfdan the Black. His next roles were in Spike Lee's comedy-drama film BlacKkKlansman and war-drama film Da 5 Bloods.
Pääkkönen's first film role was in The Glory and Misery of Human Life from 1988, when he was seven years old. He became famous as Saku Salin in the Finnish television soap operaSalatut elämät. According to a calculation published by Finnish tabloid Ilta-Sanomat, Pääkkönen is "the most profitable film actor in Finland" for having starred in numerous box office hits during his career. Many of Pääkkönen's films have made #1 at the Finnish box office, including Bad Boys, which is one of the most successful Finnish films at the national box office of all time. Other of Pääkkönen's commercial and critical successes include Frozen Land, and Lapland Odyssey. at the 2018 Cannes Film Festival For his role in Bad Boys, Pääkkönen was given the Best Actor Award in the Brussels International Independent Film Festival. He has earned international praise from film critic Michael Giltz from the Huffington Post, who called the actor "handsome and compelling" in his role in Lapland Odyssey. Film critic Leslie Felperin from Variety named Pääkkönen a "rising thesp, showing impressive range" in his starring role in Matti. In 2006 the European Film Promotion introduced Pääkkönen as the Shooting Star of Finland at the Berlin International Film Festival. In 2013, Pääkkönen starred in Finnish drama filmHeart of a Lion that earned him his first Jussi Award for Best Supporting Actor. In 2015, Pääkkönen was cast in the fourth season of the History Channel TV series Vikings as Halfdan the Black. Pääkkönen co-starred as a KKK member in Spike Lee's drama BlacKkKlansman, which premiered at the Cannes Film Festival and was released on August 10, 2018. He starred in Lee's 2020 Netflix production Da 5 Bloods''.
Other work
In 2009 Pääkkönen founded the Pokerisivut.com poker magazine together with film producerMarkus Selin. In 2010 Pokerisivut.com was awarded Best Overall Affiliate at the London 2010 iGB Affiliate Awards. Pääkkönen is a member of Vision fly fishingworld team and has appeared on fly fishing TV shows and DVDs as a celebrity guest. Pääkkönen is also known as the protector of endangered fish species of Finland. Pääkkönen has also begun an entrepreneurship with MP Antero Vartia. They built a large sauna and restaurant complex called Löyly at the shore of Hernesaari, Helsinki which cost 6 million euros to build.
