{"id":19629,"date":"2013-05-31T13:16:18","date_gmt":"2013-05-31T13:16:18","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.wonderlandmagazine.com\/?p=19629"},"modified":"2013-06-24T16:22:43","modified_gmt":"2013-06-24T16:22:43","slug":"flashback-friday-alexander-skarsgard-interview","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.wonderlandmagazine.com\/2013\/05\/31\/flashback-friday-alexander-skarsgard-interview\/","title":{"rendered":"Flashback Friday: Alexander Skarsgard"},"content":{"rendered":"

The True Blood vamp is back in cinemas as a charismatic eco-cult leader in The East, but we fell under his spell a long time ago.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

\"Alexander<\/a><\/center>This interview was published in Issue 27 of Wonderland, Sept\/Oct 2011. <\/strong><\/p>\n

Like a lot of very beautiful people, Alexander Skarsgard has a not-quite-there quality. It\u2019s not exactly aloofness \u2013 he\u2019s a lively and very likeable lunch companion \u2013 but more the sort of absent air that is the result of never, ever having had to charm anyone.<\/p>\n

He enters the restaurant at a langorous prowl, all six feet four of him looming large in the diminutive and expensively shabby surroundings of Prune in the East Village. In jeans and a snug white t-shirt he slowly draws off his sunglasses and confirms himself a kind of joke of handsomeness.<\/p>\n

There\u2019s no sign of the hangover he claims to be suffering from, but as if to prove it, he orders a burger, “fatty and salty, just what I need”. Our waitress, or rather waitresses – we somehow appear to have acquired three \u2013 virtually melt as they pour water into his glass and ask how he’d like his burger. (“Medium rare”. I resist a vamp joke.)<\/p>\n

Since he was cast in the camp sex-n-gore fest that is HBO\u2019s wildly popular vampire series True Blood, Skarsgard has unwittingly spawned website after hormonally-charged website that pore over his every move and pronouncement. I tell him that in my research I found a website selling mugs that read “That\u2019s Mrs Skarsgard to you”.<\/p>\n

“Oh really?” he smiles, and allows himself a small chuckle. He then adds, jokingly, “I own that website.”<\/p>\n

He plays Eric Northman \u2013 vampire, Viking and owner of “Fangtasia”, Louisiana\u2019s first vampire-friendly bar, in which he does a lot of predatory lowering. But this year he’s about to prove he can do much more than just look buff and bloodthirsty: True Blood has not only made him an object of lust, but also looks set to propel him into the Hollywood stratosphere of “Serious Actor”. He has two major films out this year (Lars Von Trier\u2019s Melancholia and Straw Dogs, a remake of Sam Peckinpah\u2019s controversial 1971 thriller) and two already slated for next year. I ask him if he had any inkling that the series would get so big.<\/p>\n

“No one knew, you know? I was excited about it but no one said, ‘just so you know, there’s going to be a massive hit.'”<\/p>\n

The first word of it he heard from his agent, “was basically ‘viking vampire’. So at first I was like \u2018whaaat? Fuckin’ vampire – what is this?’ Then the second sentence was “HBO and Alan Ball’ so I was kind of intrigued.”<\/p>\n

It was at the launch of Season Two at Comic Con in San Diego, witnessing crowds of hysterical fans, that he realised what a big deal the show had become. So why are we all obsessed with vampires then?<\/p>\n

\"Alexander<\/a><\/center>“I think there are a number of reasons,” he says, a little formally, as though this were a job interview. “They obviously symbolise eternal youth. Just look at our society \u2013 how obsessed people are with that. And it’s also a sexual thing, obviously \u2013 there’s always that fine line between sex and violence, sex and danger. When you’re with a vampire who’s that powerful you’re the safest person on the planet, but the vampire that’s protecting you is also a predator and could kill you any second. And that uncertainty…I think that’s pretty intriguing.”<\/p>\n

That pretty much encapsulates his character’s appeal: Eric was introduced as something of a villain but as the plot continues to thicken he\u2019s shown glimmers of tenderness. It\u2019s all deliciously unsettling, and, somewhat bizarrely, we have David Attenborough to thank for some of that.<\/p>\n

Skarsgard happened to be watching a nature film about lions and, “I d\u2019know, I was just fascinated. It was just something about the male lion, the way he kinda carried himself. And there was this one moment when he clocks the camera man and it’s just this deadpan stare. He just looked so fuckin’ confident. He didn’t do anything. He almost looked bored. And it was fascinating because you didn’t know if he was going to pounce and fuckin’ kill the cameraman, or if he was about to yawn and fall asleep. I just thought that was really intriguing – the downplay. That, in a way confidence, isn’t it? – You don’t have to be big or loud if you know that you’re the shit. Right?”<\/p>\n

(Right.)<\/p>\n

“The only reason you get like that is because you’re insecure,” he continues. “And I thought it would be a good thing to have Eric lethal and know it, so he doesn’t have to show off or prove it.”<\/p>\n

Does he get a lot of fake blood over his stuff when he\u2019s on set?<\/p>\n

“Oh god yeah,” he says, with a housewife-y eye roll. “Sometimes you have to shower with your clothes on after a long day. It’s very sticky that blood and when it dries your clothes stick to your skin and you can’t get it off. A couple of years ago we did a night shoot and when we wrapped I was so tired – we have showers in our trailers but I was just like, ‘I want to go home, take a nice hot shower at home and go to bed.’ So I just put my boxer briefs on and got in my car, covered in blood and dirt, and drove home. It was like five in the morning and I didn\u2019t think about it when I got in the car but as I was driving I was like shit, I hope I don\u2019t pass a cop or anything…”<\/p>\n

Skarsgard insists that he avoids reading about himself online or elsewhere and as for weird letters and gifts from fans, “my manager and publicist kind of screen that. So I don’t get the crazy-crazy stuff.” He laughs “\u2013 they kind of try to protect my innocence.”<\/p>\n

But when it comes to deranged fans, Skarsgard has been here before. His first professional acting job came at age seven, in his native Sweden.<\/p>\n

“My dad’s friend was a director [his father is the actor Stellan Skarsgard] and he asked him if he could ask me if I wanted to be in the movie and I said \u2018yeah\u2019. I was excited because we got free cinnamon buns on set, that’s what I remember.”<\/p>\n

Then, at thirteen, he starred in a Swedish TV movie called The Dog That Smiled and it made him a national celebrity. Girls used to hang around outside his parents house.<\/p>\n

\"Alexander<\/a><\/center>“Of course that’s weird,” he says, “but then imagine being thirteen \u2013 you’re insecure in the first place and growing from a little boy to a man, you don’t know what’s going on and then suddenly you read about yourself in magazines and people talk about you on television. So I quit. I didn’t want to be an actor…I was as far from the Hollywood child star as you can possibly get, it wasn’t like my parents pushed me or took me to acting classes and tap dancing.”<\/p>\n

In fact, he makes his upbringing sound like something out of a catalogue for a Scandinavian clothing company. He\u2019s the eldest of seven and he says, “there were always big dinner parties, every night, and we all lived in the same apartment building. So it was always like, people smoking, drinking, talking \u2013 a lot of artists and music. It was fun, it was wild. A very artistic, urban environment, surrounded by hippies y\u2019know…cigarettes and red wine.”<\/p>\n

At nineteen, he decided it was time for something a little more challenging. “At that point I still didn’t want to be an actor. I’d spent twelve years in school and I didn’t want to study, I needed a break from that. I didn’t really feel like backpacking in Asia like most people do, or moving to London to sell shoes like a lot of Swedes do.”<\/p>\n

Instead, he signed up for Swedish military service.<\/p>\n

“I mean, I\u2019m a pacifist, I don\u2019t wanna go to war, so I did it for myself. I didn\u2019t do it because I loved guns, you know? It was tough and I hated it sometimes. It taught me a lot. You learn how much more you can do than you think. And I was a sergeant so it taught me a lot about leadership and how to motivate your men.”<\/p>\n

That all came in pretty handy when he was cast as Sergeant Brad \u201cIceman\u201d Colbert on HBO\u2019s Generation Kill, a series based on the true story of a Marine battalion in the first days of the Iraq war.<\/p>\n

“We had a huge responsibility because we set out to show people back in the States what their sons and daughters were going through out there. We wanted to show the boredom, how chaotic it can be, how little they know about what they\u2019re doing, what the mission is. It was definitely the most important job I\u2019ve ever been part of, for sure. And it was very special because we premiered it at a Marine base in front of four hundred marines.”<\/p>\n

And what was their reaction?<\/p>\n

“Well…” he says with a smile and a shrug, “I\u2019m still alive, so…”<\/p>\n

After his year of military service, Skarsgard spent a year at Leeds University where he decided to give acting one last shot. He and his “buddy” went to the university library, “found some monologues and he filmed me on an old VHS camera and sent it to New York.”
\nIt worked, and, aged 21, he was accepted at Marymount College. His time there seems a particularly intense period of his life.<\/p>\n

“New York can be the greatest city on the planet but it can also be a horrible place when you\u2019re heartbroken and you walk down the street and see all these parties and people laughing.”<\/p>\n

He\u2019d fallen for a girl back in Sweden, three weeks before he left for New York and, “the long distance relationship didn\u2019t work, she went back to her ex-boyfriend, I was fffuuucking devastated. Plus I was a student, I had no money, nothing, I couldn\u2019t even afford to eat. So to walk down the street and see all these parties, people laughing and in love, it was just like…” he inhales, making a winded, death-rattle sound – “it killed me. School was fantastic and I immediately felt how much I\u2019d missed being on stage, so creatively I was supercharged, but I just couldn\u2019t breathe because I missed her so much.”<\/p>\n