Alexander Skarsgard could very possibly be on the verge of another breakthrough. Honestly, though, if people don’t know who is by now, there’s no hope for them. Between True Blood, his forays into film and Big Little Lies, people should know him by now. But he’s never done anything like the miniseries adaptation of John le Carré’s The Little Drummer Girl, where he’s playing a sexy Mossad agent. This could do to Alex what The Night Manager did for Tom Hiddleston. OMG, what if Alex starts dating Taylor Swift?!? No, I’m not even going to put that out into the universe. Anyway, to promote The Little Drummer Girl, Alex chatted with Radio Times. Here are just a few interesting quotes:
On the mostly-female cast of Big Little Lies: “Not only are they extraordinarily talented women, they’re so supportive of each other. I’ve been on sets with men where it gets very competitive, especially alpha dudes who want to make sure they’re the silverback gorilla in the room. That can hurt the creative process, because egos and insecurities come in. So it was wonderful to be in a situation where people cared about the project more than their character.
Whether his university education in Leeds, England feels like a distant memory: “It does and it doesn’t. It was an interesting time in my life. I didn’t know what I wanted to do and it was actually while at Leeds Metropolitan University that I decided to apply to theatre school. It was in the library that I picked out a book on monologues – it definitely wasn’t Shakespeare! – and my buddy filmed me on a VHS camera, and I sent it to Marymount Theatre School in New York. I got in, and two months later I moved to New York.”
How many times has he been asked about Tom Hiddleston’s bum? “Quite a few! And I’ve never seen it. I’d love to, though…I definitely can’t live up to Tom’s gorgeous bum!”
[From Radio Times, print edition, transcribed by Askars Tumblr]
He was asked about the Hiddlesbum because of The Night Manager, and how Hiddleston’s pale bum became a viral moment from the series. I would assume that Alex has some sex scenes in The Little Drummer Girl, but I really don’t know, I’ve never read the book. Still, it’s nice that Alex is so generous to Hiddleston. Maybe Alex has secretly been a Tumblr Dragonfly this whole time?
I loved what Alex said about working with women too – and now I want to know which costar he was talking about with the “silverback gorilla” comment.
Photos courtesy of WENN.
/sigh
Gorgeous man.
I love all the comments I’ve ever read from him. Seems like a great guy.
Yep…. Swoon-worthy for sure. Now I want to go back and watch True Blood.
The Little Drummer Girl is brilliant so far, and he’s fantastic in it. Amazing chemistry between him and Florence Pugh.
He is always on point with his commentary. So many actors let their douche slip out when they get comfortable (black widow is a slut being one). ive never read Alex saying anything derogatory about women, minorities, LGBT. hes one of my favorites because of that.
there are youtube videos of the Skarsgaard homelife, including ones of Kellan cooking and Alex doing homework that are interesting.
Stellan is his father, not Kellan.
That he is!
He seems to be a mellow guy, comfortable with himself and self-assured in the best sense possible.
Love him. Love that he gets it, and isn’t afraid to talk about stuff like that.
True Blood was campy fun, but there were a few actors on it who really elevated the material, and he was one of them- so glad to see him getting great roles and recognition for them.
Looking forward to watching LDG, it starts tonight in the US.
Little Drummer Girl is far, far better than The Night Manager, but it’s also a lot more complicated and challenging and stylized and every Sunday I’m surprised and saddened by the idiots who say it’s boring and they can’t understand it. So it won’t be a huge hit, but it’s definitely a better show.
Just because someone finds it boring doesn’t necessarily make them an idiot. I watched 3 episodes and don’t feel it is as good a story or as well done as The Night Manager. But it wouldn’t do if we all liked the same things.
I found Florence Pugh really good in Lady Macbeth but not so much in TLDG.
I agree. I’ve only seen the first episode of TLDG but I found it confusing and underwhelming, and boring. Florence Pugh didn’t grab me at all, but I have not seen her in anything else so that might make a difference to my perception of her since I have no favourable performances to compare. I am going to persevere, partly in the hope it will click and partly because I would watch Alexander Skarksgard doing anything, but I am disappointed with TLDG so far. OTOH, The Night Manager had me enthralled from the very first moment.
I miss True Blood summers (well, the first few seasons, anyway), but I am happy to see that Askars is having another run in the spotlight.
He seems like he genuinely a nice person and comfortable with himself.
Also, I’d still climb him like a tree.
He’s just perfect.
All 6’4” of him!
Just started watching Little drumer girl. Michael Shannon is brilliant, and ASkars is good too. I’ve only seen one episode and am super annoyed by the female lead. I don’t know what it is, she just seems missplaced and her acting is so bad for some reason. I wanna see more though. The locations are stunning.
As I said above Florence Pugh was great in Lady Macbeth.
I think she is amazing! IMO Florence Pugh does something really complicated acting-wise, which is to play this character – who is an actor and a liar – with a kind of chummy directness, which doesn’t feel like ‘real’ acting. It’s kind of jarring against all the stylization, but works so well within a story which is about a matryoshka doll of theatrical fictions. Everyone else has a ‘pose’ they are going for, but Charlie hasn’t figured hers out yet.
Anyway, that’s just my opinion. Loved her in Lady Macbeth too, spidee! And The Falling!
I like Pugh’s performance and I think she is playing it as if her character is the lead in a romantic comedy, which makes her character’s point-of-view striking, harsh contrast to the grim and dangerous and violent world she’s entering. I think it works for me b/c a) she brings humor to an otherwise very dark narrative and b) surely this series is going to be about her having to face up to the fact that it’s not just about getting to play cool spy games and sleep with the hot Mossad agent. I’m looking forward to seeing how her character develops and how she develops the character.
Love, love, love the little drummer girl! I have rewatched the first 3 episodes three times this weekend. Beautiful cinematography, beautifuly acted, mysterious plot. Love it.
Have loved Alex since True Blood and am so proud he’s getting the roles and recognition he deserves. (Eric Northman and Pam Forever!) I’m so looking forward to watching LDG tonight.
I really want to see it and am so glad it came to AMC!! I just watched the movies Netflix has of him and while Mute was panned, I thought it was really good despite some of its obvious flaws. The acting by all the cast was really good and I wanted to castrate a couple of characters. Hold the Dark was…well…dark. The references were a bit obvious and that made it painful, but it’s a book adaptation so that happens sometimes. His performance was great though because aside from his wife he really was kind of an apathetic person. You can’t even say asshole because the decisions he made were vengeance based and not him just being a douche.
I think his career trajectory being these kind of movies and films, not all the big blockbuster kind, have set him in a good place for a long career. He may not be a box office draw but theaters are losing ticket sales unless you can play a superhero or are animated. He’s played a smart Hollywood game.
I didn’t love Mute or Hold the Dark, but still thought he was very good in both.
I think he’s definitely choosing roles that interest him, rather than looking for money or stardom.
he’s a decent actor but his choice of projects surprise me, he goes from gritty stories to godzilla vs kong? a little bizaree as is his choice of starving women. michael shannon is a phenomenal talent. such a good, solid actor who keeps out of the public eye and is anti hollywood. love him.
Why does it surprise you? After doing dark stuff he probably felt like doing something fun. That’s not “bizaree”, that’s called doing whatever you want.
The same way Michael Shannon does Shape of Water then does movies about Bigfoot (yes, he was literally just in a bad movie about Bigfoot). He does whatever he wants.
There is only one actor who routinely calls himself a silverback gorilla, and that is Dwayne Johnson.
I want to climb him like a tree.
Skarsgaard is a really fantastic actor. He commits to every part and intellectually understand the throughline of every character’s arc, even when it doesn’t make any sense on the page (ahem True Blood). He is the kind of actor who can bring material to life, and make you feel like every character he plays was a guy who lived a whole life, who was walking around long before someone captured him on camera. His acting is brilliant in Little Drummer Girl. That said, he is ethnically all wrong for his Drummer Girl character. As any kind of Scandi or WASP, he looks just right. But as a Jewish Israeli trying to pass for Palestinian, um, no. (I think in the US you might have to wait till episode 3 until you see his Middle Eastern “look” revealed.)
Speaking of Eric Northman…..
I love this man.
He was on with Steve Colbert last week and it was a great interview! He is very humble and seemed not to take himself too seriously. I was really surprised.
So I never read the books or watched the show but I used to follow blind items more and years ago there was one about the lead on True Blood throwing his weight around to keep himself as the lead when in the books, the male lead became Askars character. Again, never read the books/saw the show but that is immediately where my mind went.
From what I remember, the Bill character all but disappears in the books, but the show took it in a different direction pretty early on and kept Bill as the lead. I don’t think it was the actor so much as the show creator and writers.
One of the big problems the show had was trying to give ALL of the character their own storylines and it split the focus off the main ones, making the later seasons much more disjointed than the early ones.
I have always believed the fact Stephen Moyer took up with the female lead actress, Anna Paquin, and married her, had a lot to do with why Beehl became so important in the TV show. I think Eric’s role would have been more prominent if that hadn’t happened. I find it interesting, and very satisfying, that Moyer and Paquin have pretty much faded into obscurity since True Blood ended whereas Alex’s career has gone from strength to strength. As well as being a sheer pleasure to watch, Alex is a really delightful person.
I like both Anna and Stephen, but I don’t think they were as strong in their roles as some of the other actors on the show. I’m sure their relationship influenced the characters some too.
I just looked, Anna has a bunch of tv work lined up for next year, and is going to be on The Affair, which I forgot was still going.
Ugh I would love to spend the holidays with the Skarsgard family. Not just because of Alex but all of the brothers (I think there is a sister in the mix) are so good looking.
Also just randomly looked up how many siblings there are and apparently the father Stellan had a vasectomy after he remarried and had two more kids because he thought 8 kids was enough!! Out of the 8 there is only ONE girl lol.
Really liked what he had to say!
He’s being disingenuous about his start in acting, though. When your parent is a famous actor, acting is always the most rewarding within-reach option.
Alex all movies/TV show real sex scene??