Biography

Magnus Samuelsson (born December 21, 1969), is a Swedish actor, former strongman and winner of the 1998 World's Strongest Man contest in Morocco. The son of a former Swedish arm wrestling champion, he has also been ranked among the best arm wrestlers in the world and was a European Arm Wrestling champion before becoming a professional strongman. Samuelsson holds the record for reaching the World's Strongest Man finals 10 times, a feat which he achieved over a 13-year span from 1995–2007. He has also achieved a podium place in WSM on five separate occasions. Magnus Samuelsson was offered a role in the film Gladiator but declined. One of the reasons he declined was that he believed the film was going to be a B movie. The agent who had phoned him to offer the role had told him that he would "fight with swords and so", and also named a couple of actors in the cast, which Magnus Samuelsson did not recognize. In 2009 Samuelsson won the Swedish version of the television series Dancing with the Stars, beating songwriter Laila Bagge in the final. Samuelsson plays Gunnar Nyberg, a detective in the 2011 Swedish crime thriller series Arne Dahl. It has also been aired in Germany and UK. The series is now available on Amazon Prime.