[4] His first screen role was in Lukas Moodysson's film Together, a bittersweet comedy about hippie-socialist values set in a Stockholm commune.
[citation needed] Rapace's big breakthrough came with the popular TV series Tusenbröder about a group of handymen who become involved with organised crime.
[6] He continued with several police and crime-related TV series, including portraying Daniel Nordström in the Danish police TV show Anna Pihl,[1] Crimes of Passion,[7] a crime drama set in 1950's rural Sweden, Farang[8] about a Scandinavian ex-convict living in Thailand and Hassel, an updated dark and gritty cop show based on a classic series of books from the '70s and '80s.
Rapace had a supporting role as Major Gibson in Luc Besson's 2017 French/American big budget comic book/science fiction film Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets.
[13][14] Rapace joined the cast of Below the Surface (Gidseltagningen), a Danish drama about 15 innocent people held hostage underground in a subway train, as "Yusef" when it returned for a second series in 2019.
[16][17] In August 2022 director Lukas Moodysson announced the start of a sequel to the movie Together and that the role of Lasse would not be portrayed by Ola Rapace as in the original film.
[19][20] Rapace was one of the participants in SVT's reality series Maestro, in which Swedish celebrities were taught the basics of conducting a classical orchestra.
[23] In 2021, Swedish Discovery+ announced he was one of several celebrities, including electropop musician Kleerup, and reality TV stars Jackie Ferm and Håkan Hallin, who would join the unscripted TV-series Treatment, a series about mental illness and addiction problems.
Discovery Networks Sweden describes the series as "individually adapted medical and therapeutic treatments, composed and led by addiction doctors and therapists" on an archipelago island.
[34] In November 2020, real estate magazine Hem & Hyra reported he was one of several people suing a deceased landlord, and the story revealed how apartment contracts were sold for millions.
[39] In 2021, he was arrested by police under suspicion of gross violation of women's rights /sexual misconduct/spousal abuse[40] Prosecutors announced on September 13, 2022 that they were closing the investigation, and the case was dismissed.