VARIETY ‘Actors on Actors’: Stellan Skarsgård and Alexander Skarsgård on Their Oscar Season Rivalry, BDSM, and More

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In a new conversation for VARIETY’s “Actors on Actors” issue, Stellan Skarsgård and Alexander Skarsgård discuss their Oscar season rivalry, BDSM in PILLION, acting after a stroke, SENTIMENTAL VALUE, and more. 

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The Skarsgårds on their Oscar season rivalry:

Alexander: The elephant in the room here, Dad, is that we’re both nominated for a Gotham Award in the same category. [At this year’s Gotham Awards, held on December 1, both Skarsgårds lost their category to “Sinners” actor Wunmi Mosaku.]

And people believe that it’s all going to be chummy and dad and son support each other. Which we are to a certain extent.

Stellan: There are limits.

Alexander: Now we’re up against each other.

Stellan: Now it’s gloves off.

Alexander: “Sentimental Value” — a beautiful film. You play yourself, right? An absentee father?

Stellan: That’s an insult.

Alexander: The smear campaign has begun.

The Skarsgårds on the BDSM in “Pillion”:

Stellan: When you got the script for “Pillion,” did you know [writer-director Harry Lighton] before?

Alexander: Not at all. It was kind of out of the blue.

Stellan: What was it that caught your eye?

Alexander: Well, it was a love story set in the world of BDSM, which intrigued me enough to open the script, at least. As soon as I did that, I was hooked. I was really surprised — I didn’t expect it to be so tender and sweet and funny and awkward. It was such a rich, beautiful script. I had a conversation with Harry and was incredibly impressed by his vision, how he wanted to tell this story.

Journalists have been like, “Oh, it must have been such a scary decision to jump onboard. It’s a kinky gay biker movie by a first-time filmmaker. Why take that risk?” But if a script is phenomenal and you believe in the director, it’s not scary. I am scared if I’m not crazy about the script or if I have reservations about the filmmaker.

The Skarsgårds on Stellan’s stroke and acting in “Sentimental Value”:

Alexander: I know you were nervous going into “Sentimental Value” — about the weight of it, or your own capability of playing the part.

Stellan: You mean because of the stroke? I wasn’t that nervous, because I’d made the second season of “Andor” and the second part of “Dune” after the stroke. The directors of both helped me a lot — I was in the hospital and called Tony Gilroy and Denis Villeneuve and said, “I don’t know what’s going to happen.” They were very supportive.

Alexander: Did you feel like, “I know I can fix this”?

Stellan: I felt I could do it. I still had my voice. I didn’t know how to handle this sort of earwig thing. But with the earwig — the guy talking in my ear — must not interrupt my rhythm; I have to hear the other person saying my cue, and he has to be very fast and clear, without emotion, say the line, and then I can create my rhythm. That was complicated. I thought, “Well, maybe this is it. Maybe I won’t get any more jobs.” And then Joachim [Trier] called me.

[Photo Credit: Alexi Lubomirski for Variety, Courtesy of Variety]

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