This Swedish born actor has been in the entertainment business since the ripe old age of seven years old. He is the son of Stellan Skarsgård of Pirates of The Caribbean fame, and all three of his brothers, Gustaf, Bill and Valter, are actors as well. Bill most recently played the notorious role of Pennywise, the maniacal alien clown from Stephen King’s It.
Alexander is iconic Swedish actor Stellan’s oldest son, and, standing at 6’ 4”, is taller even than his dad. Now 42 years old, it’s been 18 years since he decided the time was right to head to Los Angeles with the wild notion of finding fame and fortune, in much the same way as his father had. The gamble paid off, as he gained not only an agent – “It’s strange because no matter how bad you think you are, there is always an agent waiting just around the corner ready to tell you they have never seen someone so talented in their whole life!” – but a starring role in Ben Stiller’s comedy Zoolander.
It was, however, a brief stay in Hollywood when Skarsgård decided he might do well returning back to Scandinavia to continue honing his skills in both film and theatre; and when he got his big break back in mainstream entertainment, it was in the triple Primetime Emmy-winning HBO miniseries Generation Kill – written by co-creators of "The Wire", David Simon and Ed Burns.
This led to roles in "True Blood", Melancholia, and “Big Little Lies” with Nicole Kidman, Reese Witherspoon, and Laura Dern and now The Hummingbird Project, alongside Salma Hayek and Jesse Eisenberg for director Kim Nguyen.
To call his rise to fame an overnight sensation would be completely inaccurate. Alexander spent years honing his craft in theatrical productions and small-time movies before really hitting the mainstream with parts in HBO’s “True Blood” and the smash hit “Big Little Lies.” We got a chance to sit down with this accomplished performer recently and got to talk to him about the latest season of “Big Little Lies,” his most recent Netflix movie Hold The Dark and his first time working with Kiera Knightley in their wartime drama The Aftermath.
STRIPLV: Is it true that you went to your audition for Zoolander just for fun? Skarsgård: Yeah, I had just started acting. I was doing theater in Stockholm, my father who is also an actor was shooting a movie in LA, and I was visiting. I didn’t have representation at that time, but his agent was like well you’re in town would it be fun to go to an audition. Do you think that would be interesting? And I was like yeah it would be a great story to tell my friends back home. And it happened to be for that movie, and like two weeks later I was riding around with Ben Stiller on Broadway shooting. But, it also gave me a warped sense of Hollywood because I remember after that I was telling my friends back in Sweden I was like it’s a piece of cake you just walk into a room and Ben Stiller is there, and Hollywood because I remember after that I was telling my friends back in Sweden I was like it’s a piece of cake you just walk into a room and Ben Stiller is there, and you have a little chat and the next thing you know they are flying you to New York to shoot. And then it took three years until I got my next job. STRIPLV: When you premiere your films at festivals around the world, how much do you enjoy watching films with audiences that love cinema? Skarsgård: It was exciting for me because I hadn’t seen it with an audience before and it’s an interesting movie to watch with an audience because it’s dramatic but also quite funny. So, I was curious to see how they would they would respond and how much they would lean into the dramatic aspect of the movie or the comedic aspect. So, it was a really amazing experience to sit in a big theatre and feel that energy. STRIPLV: Your hair in The Hummingbird Project, so sorry to talk about it, but everyone will. Your co-star in this film, Salma Hayek, mentioned it on her Instagram. How was the physical transformation for you? Skarsgård: That’s what we do. It’s part of the job, and that’s how I saw the character when I read the script. Fortunately, Kim felt the same way, and it wasn’t difficult to convince him to go in that direction. It was incredibly fun to shape that and work with Kim on that and with Valérie (Levesque, the film’s costume designer) on his outfits and work on his posture and it was great, I loved it. STRIPLV: Do you miss the cut? Skarsgård: I kind of miss it actually. (Laughing) It looked a little bit weird on days that I wasn’t on set because when we shot they obviously put makeup on it to make it look real (the balding). On weekends I had like a stubble up here (motioning to the top of his head) so it didn’t look like I was bald it just looked like I went through a mental thing and just lost it and shaved my head. Other than that, I loved it. STRIPLV: Let’s talk about Hold the Dark. You play a soldier returning from Iraq whose son has gone missing and is found dead. What drew you to the role? Skarsgård: Well, Jeremy Saulnier, he is incredible. He did BlueRuin, and Green Room, two films that I loved, so I was very excited to read his script written by Macon Blair, his friend, and it’s just a fascinating story. It’s very complex, it’s very meditative, it’s very violent and it is also a character that I was deeply fascinated by. It’s brutal and heartbreaking and intense, but there was no way I could say no to that. STRIPLV: You recently starred with Keira Knightley in the wartime romance drama Aftermath. Can you tell us about your character in that film? Skarsgård: Stefan is an architect. He lives in Hamburg. We meet him just after the war—he has just lost his wife. He lives in a big beautiful house with his daughter and his daughter, she blames him for what happened, for the loss of her mother. So, she is almost estranged to him. He is a broken man when you first meet him. The loss of his wife and in effect the loss of his daughter as well. And now he is about to lose his house as well. He is requisitioned by a British officer and his wife. STRIPLV: What did you think after reading the script for this movie? Skarsgård: When I read the script, I was fascinated by it. And I immediately went out and got the book and read it. It’s a highly recommended reading. It’s beautiful. STRIPLV: What did you think of the author Rhidian Brook? Skarsgård: He was on set, so I got to talk to him about the book. So it’s loosely based on a true story. The story is fictional but is based on his own experiences as a kid moving to Hamburg with his family and letting this German family stay in the house that they requisitioned and how they started to form this friendship. It’s a beautiful story. STRIPLV: What did you like about the story? Skarsgård: The story was quite unique. We rarely see the devastation of the German side after the war. We never see the pain and the suffering on that side. And to meet people that were neither good nor bad, they were somewhere in between just trying to make it through the day. He was trying to protect his daughter. I thought that was beautiful and quite different. STRIPLV: What was it like working with James Kent,, your director on this project? Skarsgård: I did not know James. But, my friend Alicia Vikander worked with him on Testament of Youth, so when I was reading the script for The Aftermath, I talked to Alicia. She spoke very highly of James and said that he was wonderful to work with. STRIPLV: What was it like working with your co-star Keira Knightley? Skarsgård: I met Keira about 10 to 15 years ago when she had just shot Pirates with my old man. So, I met her a couple of times then. But, this is the first time we worked together. I loved it. STRIPLV: How did you explore the relationship between the characters in the film? Skarsgård: It was wonderful to explore the dynamic between these three characters. It had so much depth, and it was so layered. All three of them carry some heavy baggage. They need someone to talk to, but they deal with it in very different ways. I thought it was interesting how they try to connect with each other. STRIPLV: How did you like working with Jason Clarke? Skarsgård: Jason is remarkable to work with. He is super fun and sweet but at the same time a very intense great actor. Very collaborative and very open to doing whatever serves the scene without a big ego. STRIPLV: What do you hope audiences will take away from seeing The Aftermath? Skarsgård: I just hope that people understand the complexity and the human psychology, it’s not always good versus bad. There are people suffering on both sides. STRIPLV: What are your thoughts about the film and the technology used in The Humming Bird Project? Skarsgård: It’s not the scope of what they are actually doing, although that is fascinating, and I’m not into technology either. But the fact that these two guys embark on this endeavor to build a tunnel from Kansas City to New York is just so insane that it’s just so difficult not to find that mesmerizing. STRIPLV: How important is it that you love the company that you have on a film, with regards to the cast and the director, when making your choice to take a role? Skarsgård: Those are all components when I choose to whether to do a movie or not. I mean, you start with a script and a filmmaker and then is it something that I am responding to. Am I fighting to be a part of it, do I find this intriguing? Do I want to spend, two, three, four or months exploring this character with this filmmaker? But then obviously, if you’re excited about that then you move onto who the other actors in the film with you, are these people who I want to go on this journey with? STRIPLV: How important is it to speak up in Hollywood for strong women? Skarsgård: The next few years are very important because the spotlight is on, but when it’s not the novelty wears off. When it’s in the news for a while, how do you sustain that? So, what happens when it wears off, and people say that it was just something that happened in 2017 and now, we’re back to status quo. That’s why I think that it is important to keep focusing on it. STRIPLV: You’re joining us after your big premiere of “Big Little Lies” last night. How are you feeling? Skarsgård: Yeah, we had the premiere last night, so I’m just a little tired, but we had a good time it was worth it. STRIPLV: Watching “Big Little Lies” was great. You are back for season two, and who plays your mother? Skarsgård: I believe it’s Meryl Streep. (Laughing) I hear she is wonderful. Very talented. I almost worked with her a couple of years ago on a movie. I had a scene with her. I was very excited that was kind of the reason I wanted to do the movie was to work with Meryl Streep. And then I show up on set, and she is a hologram in the scene it was a sci-fi, so she is literally not on set. You don’t even get to meet her—she’s in London. So I made sure to, uh, well I can’t reveal too much about season two but I was on set, and I got to meet Meryl Streep. And I maybe got to work with her as well. STRIPLV: Many people might not know it, but long before you became an actor as an adult, you were a child star in Sweden (Alexander made his acting debut at the age of seven in his father, Stellan Skarsgård’s film Ake and His World). Skarsgård: I always loved acting as a kid, and the reason I quit acting at 13 was because of all the attention and everything that had nothing to do with acting. I did a film in Sweden (The Dog That Smiled), and it was a big success, and that’s when the problems started. The paparazzi were camping outside our house, and I noticed that people at school were treating me differently and that was making me very comfortable and miserable. I wanted to be a regular kid and be able to go out drinking and playing football with my friends. I also hated the idea that magazines and newspapers were printing stories about me. So, I went to my dad and told him that I wanted to quit. And I did. STRIPLV: What was your father’s reaction? Skarsgård: He was great about it. The main thing he said to me was that if I was going to quit, I should be completely sure about my decision. He also told me, which was kind of a warning about the acting business in general, that if I was lucky, I would be able to make movies all around the world. But the chances were that I wouldn’t be able to earn a living at it which was the case with almost all his actor friends who were very talented but couldn’t find enough work. STRIPLV: Your dad has enjoyed a very successful Hollywood career and is a legend in your home country. Do you ever feel that you’re operating under his shadow? Skarsgård: No. I’ve always believed that it was very important for me to find my own way in the business. I wanted to be able to make my own mistakes and not rely on my father’s advice even though he’s very supportive of me and would have gladly helped me in any way he could. I was very stubborn about wanting to find my way in the business on my own because I have so much admiration for my dad and he’s really a friend as much as he is a father to me. STRIPLV: As you say, you and your dad are still quite close, aren’t you? Skarsgård: Yes. I love him so much, and he’s been such a good father and so supportive of me all my life. My dad is one of my best friends, and it’s so great for me to be able to talk to him and get to hang out with him whenever we have the chance. He’s a really cool guy, and I’m so lucky to have him as my dad. STRIPLV: What was the best advice your father ever gave you about acting? Skarsgård: He always said, “Do it if you love it!” I was a child actor and quit when I was 13, but he never pushed me to keep going. He said to me, “If there are options out there, if there are alternatives, go explore those.” Go and do this if you have absolutely no other option. I quit for eight years and I found my own way back and that was definitely the best piece of advice he gave me because when I was 13, I was getting offers because I did something that got some attention in Sweden. But back then, if I did do it, I would have done it just to please my father, but I’m pretty sure that would have turned me off acting for good. STRIPLV: You’ve been living back in the US for over a decade now. Do you feel at home in America or do you still find the culture very different from that of Sweden? Skarsgård: It’s a hard thing to say. I haven’t really lived in Sweden for any length of time since my late twenties, but I still feel like a bit of an outsider in the States. I enjoy my life here, but the two cultures are very different, and I will always relate much more closely to all the things that happened to me while I was growing up in Stockholm. It’s all those memories which you associate with key moments in your life like hanging out with my friends, your favorite football club or remembering your first kiss or which street it was where a girl broke up with me when I was 13. No matter how much time I spend in New York or L.A. or anywhere else, my identity will always be Swedish. STRIPLV: Will you work back in Sweden? Skarsgård: Yeah totally but it’s so very small, difficult to find something that you’re excited about. There are great projects out there but I was in a position where I did something I was really excited about but to pay the rent, I’d have to do stuff that I wasn’t excited about. That’s why I went out to the States. I would definitely want to go back to Sweden, Swedish directors, and Swedish films. It’s not like I’ve left Sweden behind. STRIPLV: You joined the Swedish military when you were 19. What was behind that decision? Skarsgård: It was something I needed to do and wanted to do for myself. It involved very tough training, and we would go on these survival training missions that were brutal. But it made me much tougher and more disciplined, and I also met a lot of interesting guys. The mentality was very aggressive though, and after a while, I knew that I wasn’t going to pursue a military career. Still, it was a very valuable experience. STRIPLV: You spent some time living in England after you completed your military service in Sweden. Why did you decide to go to Leeds as opposed to London, for example? Skarsgård: I had a lot of friends in London, and many Swedes like to go there after they finish college. I decided to go to Leeds because it was not as cosmopolitan or international as London and there aren’t as many tourists or foreign people living in Leeds. I wanted to live in a very English kind of environment, and I had an amazing time in Leeds. I’ll never forget that. STRIPLV: What about your Antarctic voyage? How was that experience? Did you remain close with Prince Harry? Skarsgård: Really great experience, we were out there for a month with literally nothing, unbelievable experience, we all became so close because it was such an extreme situation. Now I really want to do the North Pole, which I guess could make me bipolar but that window is quite short, you can do that for a few weeks in April because of the ice. I’d like to go up to Northern Iceland. STRIPLV: You clearly like to challenge yourself to the extreme, is that something you’ve always been interested in? Skarsgård: I think the extremes are really those things that connect us with the familiar, that may sound like a strange thing to say, but there is nothing more than can feel like home when you return somewhere having been away. You need to separate yourself from a place in order to truly appreciate it. Growing up in a very urban, busy, hectic, concrete-type place like South Stockholm was a good thing for me because it grounded me right from the start. I would much rather have grown up in a place like that with the contrast being to go off and discover different places and different landscapes, than to have done it the other way around where being in a busy place was in some way scary or alien. I like the contrasts of different places and am glad I have experienced them in the order that I have, as well as doing things such as joining the Navy for a year-and-a-half down in the archipelago, which is a very different environment to what I’m used to. The trek across Antarctica was another wonderful extreme - being disconnected from everything, being without a cell phone or wi-fi signal; that will always be good for me. STRIPLV: Where do you feel most complete and relaxed? Skarsgård: Oh definitely in the city, because that is the place I am used to. You always come back to the most familiar, and I can’t say I don’t like the city.