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Fan Forum Legend
Joined: Jan 2010
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New Alex Interview with Vanity Fair Italia + one of our favorite photo shoots (by Kurt Iswarienko)!
NO SELFIES, THANK YOU
He loves social media, but rejects the narcissism behind it, because many people “only post photos where they look good.”
ALEXANDER SKARSGÅRD, with the height of a Viking and the chest of Tarzan, certainly does not have problems to show. Like when he came to the MTV Movie Awards in his underwear
By PAOLA JACOBBI
That dot on the second “a” of the last name is difficult to pronounce. Alexander Skarsgård is sitting in front of me at Villa Necchi Campiglio, during a Tod’s event in Milan for Men’s Fashion Week. He tried to teach me. A lesson in futility. Luckily, this is a newspaper, not a radio, so let’s move on. The eldest son of actor Stellan (who has a formidable, forty-year career between Sweden and Hollywood), Alex (everyone calls him that) also has two other actor brothers, Gustaf and Bill. Then there are Sam, Eija (the only sister) and Valter. There’s more: in the last decade they were joined by Ossian, eight years old, and Kolbjörn, the youngest, born in 2012, sons of Stellan’s second wife and a quarter of a century younger than him.
Alexander, who will be 41 years old on August 25, has never married, although he has had many girlfriends: the latest is Alexa Chung, a blogger, fashion model, tv presenter and musician.
Tall and muscular like a Viking hero yet elegant, confident and witty, Skarsgård was launched internationally by the True Blood vampire TV series, while at the same time, between seasons, he was traveling back to Europe to work with people like Lars Von Trier. Then, a year ago, he made The Legend of Tarzan, a film that prompted a lot of talk from film making experts. The budget was remarkable ($ 180 million), but Tarzan was unknown to the new generations that make up the bulk of action movie audiences, plus the protagonist was not a real star. The film was not a triumph (nonetheless it has grossed more than $ 350 million world world), but did very well for Alex’s career. Nicole Kidman wanted him as a husband for the phenomenal Big Little Lies series and I would not be surprised if, on July 13, we see his name among the actors with an Emmy nomination, the Oscars of TV, which will be delivered in September.
Vanity Fair Italia/Paola: In Big Little Lies you play a man who has a perfectly normal appearance but is violent and savagely beats his wife. He is the most disturbing character. Did you have any qualms about accepting this role?
Alex: No, I’m an actor. The bad guys and complicated characters are always the best. In this case, there is also something deeply tragic in him: he is a man who cannot change, destined to be so.
VFI: Did you expect the success of the series?
Alex: I didn’t realize it until a few weeks ago. While it was airing, I was completely isolated in Canada, filming a movie (Hold the Dark) in the same place where The Revenant was made. When I came back, I met Nicole Kidman and we talked about a possible second season.
VFI: I’ve read it too. But I wonder how it’s possible, I apologize. It’s taken from a book that ends the same as the series ends, and your character is dead.
Alex: Huh. We’ll see.
VFI: I get it. You can’t say more. Let’s talk about the fact that, at this time, there’s a kind of Scandinavian boom in Hollywood. You, Alicia Vikander, Mads Mikkelsen, Nikolay Coster-Waldau… How do you explain it?
Alex: In the past, apart from Max von Sydow and then my father, we were really few. And until a decade ago, the idea of leaving Europe to go to Hollywood was a risky, frightening dream. Maybe they all became courageous after True Blood. They must have thought: “if Alex made it, I can do it too, I’m certainly better than him!” (Laughs).
VFI: A Swedish director, Ruben Östlund, has just won the Palme d'Or.
Alex: You think I should have made his previous movie, Force Majeure, but I had other commitments and did not do it. I would love to work with him. Indeed, with him and with my father, because so far we have made one film together (Melancholia).
VFI: Did True Blood’s popularity have any disadvantages?
Alex: No, except that, for some scheduling issues, I may have missed out on a few film projects. I loved True Blood: it never became repetitive, like some of the long series set in hospitals or courtrooms that seem to never end.
VFI: Is it true that as a boy you wanted to become an architect?
Alex: True. And I’m still really passionate about it. I like Richard Neutra and Rudolph Schindler, and during the ten years I lived in Los Angeles I bought a 1963 home in that modernist, minimalist style. It was a crazy house. I loved it and I was sorry to have to sell it when I moved to New York.
VFI: Why did you move?
Alex: Because I want to be closer to my family, they are all in Stockholm. I go there three or four times a year, but I have shortened the distance. When I’m away I miss my five-year-old brother and my 2 ½ year old nephew very much. I follow my family members very closely on social media to see what they are up to.
VFI: You follow them on social media? But who should have followers is you!
Alex: I have an Instagram account, but it is not a traditional celebrity account, I put a few things on it and I do not look for followers. [Social Media] Numbers measure success for the Kardashians, not for an actor. An actor must keep a certain distance from the public. If you post fourteen selfies a day, if I tell you what I ate at breakfast, then why should you come see my movies? Too much personal information questions the credibility of the interpreter. Frankly, I do not really like the narcissistic aspect of social media. I love it when people photograph and share what they see, not when they only post photos in which they look good.
VFI: How did you end up going to the MTV Movie Awards in a smoking jacket and underwear? Did you lose a bet?
Alex: No! No bets. It was my idea, after they had asked me to go bare-chested to promote Tarzan. But a couple of years before Zac Efron had already been shirtless. Then I thought I would show off my legs instead of the pecs. Bare-chested and with trousers is sexy, with a jacket and without pants is ridiculous.
I wanted to be ridiculous, it was a hoot.
VFI: Is it harder to interpret Tarzan for the movies or Hamlet for the theater, as your brother Gustaf did in Stockholm?
Alex: Different difficulties. I also happened to work in theater in something very intense: I did 140 performances of Who is afraid of Virginia Woolf? Always in Stockholm. Tarzan’s problem was the preparation: gymnastics, a very sad diet divided into six mini meals, no alcohol, no social life. I’m so glad I do not have to do it anymore.
VFI: Are you saying that there won’t be a Tarzan 2?
Alex: Ah, I do not know. Anything is possible but, as with Big Little Lies, it depends on what kind of sequel it is. You have to have something new to tell.
Sources: Original Article: Vanity Fair Italia (July 12, 2017 issue)(Our digital scans), Translation: Google + lots of clean-up by The Library, Photos: Portraits by Kurt Iswarienko (x, x, x, x)
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Pictures here!
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