New Interview! Alex is on the April 3, 2022 cover of The Sunday Times Culture magazine!
Alexander SkarsgĂ„rd interview: âI nearly ran over Greta Thunbergâ
The star of Tarzan, Succession and now The Northman says good looks are a mixed blessing
by Jonathan Dean (Sunday April 03 2022)
âThat cemetery is where Iâll end up one day,â Alexander SkarsgĂ„rd says, looking out to the yellow Katarina Church in Stockholm. With blue skies above it, the colours match his countryâs flag. He grew up streets away, but mostly lives in the US, where he made his name in Zoolander and The Legend of Tarzan, plus the television shows True Blood and Big Little Lies. Oh, and Succession. He left his country 20 years ago, to become the screen hunk who brings more to a role than big hunks tend to. Yet as we look out to the graveyard, it seems that you can take the Swede out of Sweden, but even the most successful ones come back in the end.
He is sprawled on the sofa, legs spread like cranes. This is how he has to sit. The man is 6ft 3in. We have met to talk about The Northman, a violent, strange, brilliant Viking blockbuster with Nicole Kidman as SkarsgĂ„rdâs difficult mother. But first a word on those Swedes because, for a country of just ten million people, they really do punch above their weight in the world.
Within minutes the actor mentions Abba, Vikings and Greta Thunberg. It is Swedish bingo. The tech pioneers Daniel Ek (Spotify creator) and Markus Persson (Minecraft) crop up. As does SkarsgĂ„rdâs famous actor father, Stellan. Only Max Martin, who has written 25 US No 1s, is missing from this full house of Swedish soft power.
SkarsgĂ„rd cycled past Greta on his way to meet me; she was on a protest. âSheâs how we sell our country now,â he reflects. âAnd I almost hit her with my bike.â SkarsgĂ„rd smiles. âGreta is like a modern-day Viking â and, like Greta, the Vikings refused to fly.â
SkarsgĂ„rd âs childhood was very Swedish. When he was a boy he played next to Viking rune stones on the island of Oland, and was allowed to pick Viking middle names for his younger brothers. For the first he chose Adolf, before his folks said no. Instead he went with Orm â which means snake. âI was used to being the oldest child and had a lot of attention,â he explains. âThen there was somebody cuter than me, so I called him snake.â He gave his other brother the name of a god whose brains are smashed into the sky. Still, the runes were magical to him, inscribed with Vikings who went to far-flung places.
No wonder SkarsgĂ„rd was picked for Succession. If you need television shorthand for somebody young and a match for a business behemoth like Logan Roy, make them Swedish. SkarsgĂ„rdâs Lukas Matsson is a rude revelation as the chief executive of the streaming platform GoJo, who may well have brought down the Roy media empire. The actor does not yet know if he is back for series four, but the word is that he will be.
The best scenes in series three were with Matsson and Logan Roy (Brian Cox) in the garden of an Italian villa. The men discuss takeovers until Logan begins a monologue about America âŠ
âAnd Matsson drifts off,â SkarsgĂ„rd says, laughing. âHe is bored. There are all these sycophants in Loganâs life, including his kids â he is a demigod. So what is funny is when he talks about America, instead of going, âTell me more!â Matsson goes, âHe talks a lot. I donât really need him. Heâs old and kind of boring.ââ
It is a great role. But SkarsgÄrd did not always have it so easy. Born in 1976, he started acting at seven, before quitting at 13. He had found fame in a TV show, but it was tough to have people talk about who you are when you do not yet know yourself.
National service followed, and then six months at Leeds Met studying English and living with a drug dealer. âI basically just hung out and had fun.â Then, seven years after he gave it up, he returned to acting.
âDad was happy,â SkarsgĂ„rd says. His father also made it big abroad in everything from Good Will Hunting to Mamma Mia!. âHeâd come home from set when I was young and Iâd think, âIf he is having that much fun on a Monday morning, why am I against being an actor?ââ
The visionary and bonkers Northman is his hardest role to date. SkarsgĂ„rd is Amleth, a Viking prince avenging his father. In one extraordinary raid SkarsgĂ„rd is half-naked, half-wolf, tripping, taking a chunk out of someoneâs throat. He is naked and bloody a lot. Think the superb and ghastly Belarusian war film Come and See meets the vivid horror of Midsommar. Yet still you wonât be prepared for a nude Ethan Hawke barking like a dog. I am staggered, in an age of franchises, that this $90 million, weird violent epic was made. âSo am I,â SkarsgĂ„rd says.
Still, Amleth is exactly the sort of role that SkarsgĂ„rd wants. A wish-fulfilment part that marries the Viking history that beguiled him as a boy with the challenging work that he did not get at the start of his career. After scoring a role in Ben Stillerâs fashion comedy Zoolander in 2001, offers dried up. âI was left auditioning to play the boyfriend of a girl who gets killed in scene four of a low-budget horror movie,â he says of Hollywood.
In Sweden he worked in films that barely paid enough to buy a ticket back to LA. That must have been depressing? âAbsolutely,â he says. âI was questioning why I was in the industry.â It was not until 2008 that things changed, when The Wireâs creator David Simon cast him in his Iraq war HBO series Generation Kill.
Charlize Theron once said that it is hard for an actor to be hot. âWhen meaty roles come through,â she explained, âpretty people get turned away first.â Did SkarsgĂ„rd have that experience? âAs a good looking blonde woman,â he jokes, âI can relate.â He pauses and tries out a few answers.
âI donât really know if that was the reason I wasnât getting roles,â he explains eventually. âStarting out in Sweden, there was stuff about being tall and blond âŠâ He laughs. âBut most people here are tall and blond. Still, after my first job I was on a stupid âsexy hunky hot listâ and then people didnât take me seriously. If you want characters with depth but have been labelled âa dude who takes his shirt offâ, youâre not going to get those offers.â
He finds much of his Hollywood life bizarre. Heâs dated a string of famous women including Alexa Chung and is a fixture on the gossip websites. But heâs not on social media, will never google his name. âThis industry is incredibly ridiculous,â he says. âIn meetings people are really insecure and eager to please. But itâs a strict hierarchy. If people at the top say something is good, people fall in line. Also, menial trivial bullshit stuff becomes very important to people. As an actor the value placed on how important something is can become laughable to me.â His real ambition is to have lots of kids. His twice-married father has eight. He wants nine.
Does he know people similar to his billionaire character on Succession? âA little â Stockholmâs a hub for people who start ridiculously successful companies. A lot are programmers, not dudes who got the girl. They sit in the basement and drink Dr Pepper then, suddenly, like the Minecraft guy, outbid BeyoncĂ© on a house in the Hollywood Hills. I like the idea of Matsson being in that rat race of the ultra-wealthy, because it never ends. Iâve been on yachts and seen owners glance at the yacht next door, because itâs 5ft longer. It never ends, does it?â
Sure, but SkarsgĂ„rd is an A-lister with access to great riches like his Succession role? âI live an incredibly privileged life,â he admits. At 45 he has a reported worth of $15 million. âI donât really have to work â Iâve made enough. I could retire, which is extraordinary. But I donât feel the need to broadcast that with expensive clothes or cars. That radiates insecurity. When you see somebody with a $1 million watch? Thatâs peacocking. It can feel like theyâre overcompensating.â
We wrap up. He has a meeting, but then texts me to go out for a beer. When he turns up, he arrives on a bike with a practical handlebar basket and we talk town planning until a couple of friends turn up, one with a tiny baby. It couldnât be more Swedish. He is wearing normcore chic like he has just walked out of a slightly more expensive H&M. He gets a few looks, sure, but he is at home here â and it is where he will end up.
Excerpt not included in the article (x):
âIt was just a treat â when you have all those elements come together. A script that is so impeccable and tight. And someone like Jesse. Then you work with Brian Cox? Itâs the best ever. To play around with that was nice. I went straight from that villa to Iceland to shoot a scene of me as a viking slave in shackles, dragged through the mud. That was within 48 hours.â
How not laugh when saying that daft, âYou know Mark?â line?
âThere was a bit of, âWill the audience clock itâs Zuckerberg weâre talking about?â In one version, I said, âZuck told me. Oh, you know Mark?â Then we just stuck with Mark. We tweaked it. Itâs constantly evolving.â
The Northman opens on Apr 15
You can purchase the print issue here.
Sources/Thanks:Â Article:Â Jonathan Dean for The Sunday Times Culture (x)(April 3, 2022), Images:Â Our edits, Originals by photographer Charlie Clift via: The Sunday Times Culture (x, x), charlieclift instagram (x, x), & April 9 insta story (x, x) & JonathanDean_ twitter (x):Â Â âDelighted to announce that ALEXANDER SKARSGARD is on the cover this Sunday looking like this.â
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