He was a scary Swede in Fargo, a scary Russian in Armageddon, a scary German in The Big Lebowski, and a scary Frenchman in Chocolat, so my guess is it was simply next on his CV of scary ethnic bruisers to play a convicted mafioso.

according to the IMDB, he played everybody's favorite gay Nazi, Ernst Röhm, in this movie

damn. check out the cast on that one. Robert Carlyle as Hitler? Peter O'Toole as Hindenberg? Matthew Fucking Modine as Fritz Gerlich? MUST NETFIX, STAT!

I need to queue that