New Alex interview in the February 11, 2018 edition of Observer Magazine! Â
Alexander SkarsgĂ„rd: âHollywood is very silly. People are so anxiousâ
The True Blood actor takes glee in pricking the pomposity of his profession and wonders if he should be an architect instead
When Alexander SkarsgĂ„rd was 20 years old, half his lifetime ago, he decided to give acting a shot. At the time, he had left his native Sweden for Leeds â âof all placesâ â and was studying English at whatâs now called Leeds Beckett University. It was a toss-up between training to be an actor or an architect. âI was like most people that age, trying to figure out what to do,â he recalls. âAnd it was kind of: âFuck it, Dadâs an actor, heâs super-happy doing it, maybe I should give it a go.â I felt like, if I donât try it now, there is a risk that Iâll look back 30, 40 years from now and think: âWhy didnât I? What an idiot!â
âYeah,â SkarsgĂ„rd goes on, smiling, âIâd like to be able to say it was a calling, that creatively I was just driven to do it, but um⊠I wasnât.â
Two decades on, it turns out not to have been SkarsgĂ„rdâs worst decision. In his first American film, he played a vacuous male model in Zoolander (âEarth to Meekusâ), but that was followed by a fallow period: âFor two and a half years, I didnât work.â
The drought finally broke in 2007 when he landed a role as a US Marine in the Ed Burns and David Simon-led mini-series Generation Kill about the invasion of Iraq and then the big one, a recurring part as the mighty Eric Northman, the 1,000-year-old bar owner and âsheriffâ in the cult hit True Blood.
âWhen they called me and said: âOh, do you want to audition for this vampire Viking thing?â I didnât expect that show to last for seven years.â He laughs so hard he almost spits his lunch across the table. âNever thought that would happen.â
Since True Blood finished in 2014, the 41-year-old SkarsgÄrd has been an eight-packed modern incarnation of Tarzan, and he has recently won an Emmy and a Golden Globe for his portrayal of a charming yet sinister wife abuser in the eight-part television drama Big Little Lies.
SkarsgĂ„rd has become so successful that heâs in effect made himself homeless. On the day we meet, in the gilded surrounds of Hotel Le Meurice in Paris, he is on a brief stopover between Hamburg, where heâs been shooting with Keira Knightley, and Calgary, Canada, where his next film starts. The gaps between his last four projects were so small that he gave up his apartment in New York and put all his belongings in storage.
âIâm not married and I donât have kids, and Iâm really enjoying it at the moment,â says SkarsgĂ„rd. âThereâs something quite Buddhist about the sense that you can only have eight items or whatever. Because I have my one suitcase and whatever doesnât fit in that, I canât bring. So the other day, I wanted to buy a pair of sneakers and I realised theyâre not going to fit in the suitcase, so I have to decide, how badly do I want them? Because if I buy these, I have to leave the other pair. So in terms of consumption, it really makes you think.â
SkarsgĂ„rd looks down: his slouchy V-neck tee and denim incongruous in the opulent, high-ceilinged Le Meurice. âSo youâll see me wearing the same T-shirt and the same jeans now for the next six months,â he says.
The size of a tree and strapping with it, outlandishly handsome even by Scandinavian standards, SkarsgĂ„rd could easily have gone down the path of the himbo. But the reality, in person, is that he is both too smart and too silly for that to happen. He takes glee in pricking the pomposity of Hollywood and telling you how âcrazyâ most of the people are there. When heâs given a plus one for work trips, he prefers not to take an agent or a publicist, but a friend from back home: âA pot-smoking musician from Gothenburg.â On his Instagram feed (@rexdanger: âDanger is my maiden nameâ), heâll post a picture of the Eiffel Tower with the caption: âWhen in Romeâ; another recent image seems to show him urinating against a wall.
Itâs not all jokes. SkarsgĂ„rd will talk with intensity about the nine months he spent getting into shape for Tarzan: the relentless gym and dance sessions, the six precisely weighed meals a day, most of them tuna. But heâs not by nature the self-denying type: as soon as the movie wrapped, he spent three days on a couch eating mozzarella and bone marrow and drinking wine. For lunch now, he has a plate of Dover sole the size of a dustbin lid, but when I suggest that heâs taken the healthy option, he looks mortified: âNo, no, no, thereâs a lot of butter on this little guy.â
Today, the main item on the agenda, in theory, is SkarsgĂ„rdâs new sci-fi movie Mute, directed by Duncan Jones. The word âlong-awaitedâ often flies around, but this is the real deal. A screenplay was written in 2003 by Jones, David Bowieâs son, and he planned for it to be his first film. But the budget requirements for the ambitious futuristic setting made that unworkable, so instead Jones made Moon, a scaled-back tale that starred Sam Rockwell as a helium-3 miner on the far side of the moon. That won him a Bafta in 2010 for the outstanding debut by a British filmmaker.
Mute, which Jones calls âa companion piece to Moonâ, has since become âmy Don Quixoteâ, a nod to the Terry Gilliam film that became a lightning rod for shambolic misfortune. In the intervening years, Jones has also made a couple of other films and had a turbulent period personally, including having a baby, his wifeâs successful battle with cancer and the deaths of both his father and Marion, the woman who raised him.
Something else happened in those years: Netflix came along. Mute is set in Berlin in 2052 and follows a speechless Swiss-Amish bartender, Leo (SkarsgÄrd), whose girlfriend Naadirah (Seyneb Saleh) inexplicably goes missing. His search takes him deep into a neon-saturated underworld, populated by gangsters and a pair of anarchic American field surgeons (Paul Rudd and Justin Theroux), as well as freaky robot dancers and frankly terrifying sexbots, complete with sucker pads and studded dildos.
One of Jonesâs inspirations was Blade Runner and thatâs where Netflix, and its cavernous pockets, came in. âItâs a quite expensive movie; because he wants to create Berlin in 2052, itâs a big world,â says SkarsgĂ„rd. âAnd itâs tough today to make movies that are dramatic, dark, character-driven for a lot of money, because if studios are going to pay for a movie, they want big action. Whatâs great about Netflix, in a way, is that it wants a wide variety of projects and it doesnât have to cater to everyone. It can take chances on projects like these.â
From the snippets of Mute that have been released, itâs hard to work out how absurd and obscene Jonesâs vision is. âItâs very dystopian, but not that far-fetched unfortunately, because itâs a society run by corporations,â says SkarsgĂ„rd. âYou subscribe to a corporation and then they will provide everything for you â housing, healthcare, food â but they basically own you. And itâs eerie that Duncan wrote that 15 years ago, especially with Citizens United in the States, the supreme court decision where thereâs no limit to the money you can pump into politics. And having a businessman-entertainer as president now. Also by the way, itâs 2052, but weâre still fighting in Afghanistan, weâre still involved.â
So we could be looking at the future then? SkarsgĂ„rd looks a little traumatised and then sighs: âHopefully not.â
SkarsgĂ„rdâs own upbringing is a long way from dystopian. When he mentioned that his father was an actor, he was of course being modest: âDadâ is the great Stellan SkarsgĂ„rd, a stalwart of everything from Lars von Trierâs films to Pirates of the Caribbean and Mamma Mia!. His mother, My, is a doctor and the family home is in Södermalm, south Stockholm, traditionally a working-class area, but now full of beards and coffee shops. SkarsgĂ„rd Snr has eight children, seven boys and a girl, Alexander is the eldest and the youngest is five. And heâs created something of an acting dynasty: his sons Gustaf, Bill and Valter all work in film and television.
âI try to go back to Sweden whenever I can, I love it, itâs the best,â says SkarsgĂ„rd. âItâs complete chaos, but itâs awesome, because thereâs dogs and cats and kids and boyfriends, girlfriends⊠Itâs almost like a commune. Because they all basically live together: my parents are divorced, but they live a block away from each other and they are still best friends. Mumâs brother is my dadâs childhood friend. Theyâve been best friends since they were kids, and they live in the same building.
âItâs very different from my lifestyle, moving around when Iâm shooting movies,â he continues. âBut yeah, eventually when itâs time to have kids and stuff, I want to have nine. I want to beat my dad.â
SkarsgĂ„rd is often linked with co-stars and glamorous women; most recently he dated Alexa Chung for a couple of years, but they broke up last summer. Heâs remarkably open in most ways, and heâs almost apologetic today when he says that heâd rather not discuss his relationships.
âYeah, I donât talk about it much, and thatâs a way to protect it,â he says. âWhen I was a kid, thatâs how my father dealt with it. I wouldnât say it kept him sane, because heâs pretty crazy, but somewhat. The fact that he protected his private life so much, and protected my mum who is not an actor or a public figure.â
The amount that SkarsgĂ„rd is currently working, he admits, certainly doesnât help. âI do it now because I can and Iâm really enjoying it,â he says. âAnd I donât have a lifeâ â a dry laugh. âBut I definitely want kids and, if I do, I probably would prioritise differently. And if I want nine, Iâd better get started pretty soon then, right?â
Certainly SkarsgĂ„rd is on a hot run right now, especially following Big Little Lies. His character, Perry, was a monster who bullied and physically violated his wife Celeste (played by Nicole Kidman), but SkarsgĂ„rd skilfully teased out his insecurity and the turbulent complexity of their relationship. In his speech after winning the Golden Globe he called it âthe best experience of my careerâ. âNicoleâs a decent actress, actually,â says SkarsgĂ„rd. âSurprisingly.â He arches an eyebrow, âYeah, sheâs obviously fucking incredible, so what a treat to work with someone like that.â
Big Little Lies is returning for a second season â and so, intriguingly, is Perry â and SkarsgĂ„rd, working non-stop, looks set to fill our screens over the coming months and years. But heâs not about to become carried away by his current success. âIâm so ridiculously lucky and fortunate to be where I am,â he says. âI have friends who are way better actors than I am who are not working.
âHollywood is very silly in a way,â he explains. âItâs like playing marbles when you were a kid in the schoolyard. People are so anxious: âWhat filmmaker is hot right now? Which actor is hot?â Same thing in the school playground: the cool kid says: âThis is the marble to get.â And everyone is like: âOh my God, I want it!ââ
SkarsgĂ„rd drains his coffee cup and stands up: at 6ft 4in, his presence suddenly makes the reception room we are in feel like a dollâs house. But he smiles goofily and shakes hands. âItâs here today, gone tomorrow,â he says. âI donât expect this ride to last for ever and maybe I donât want it to. Maybe I should revisit architecture and become an architect instead, and just live in one place and not travel around. Actually be able to get some furniture and hang a painting on a wall. Definitely Iâm not taking it too seriously.â
Mute is released on Netflix on 23 February.
Sources: Article: Tim Lewis for The Observer Magazine/The Guardian (x,x) Photos: New Portrait & Cover Image by  Denis Rouvre for The Observer Magazine via TheGuardian.com (x) & Harriet Green (harrietg100 instagram (x)), Mute & True Blood promo stills: Keith Bernstein / Netflix & Alamy Stock Photo/HBO
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