Second-generation actor Alexander Skarsgard had been working in his native Sweden for many years as well as playing bit parts in movies like Zoolander, but his role in the HBO mini-series “Generation Kill” led to him being cast as the vampire prince Eric Northman on HBO’s “True Blood” and his popularity has just exploded from there.
Since then, Skarsgard has become an in-demand film actor, starring in Rod Lurie’s remake of Straw Dogs and next year’s summer action-adventure Battleship. Over the summer, he also shot two indie movies in New York, What Maisie Knew opposite Julianne Moore and Disconnect, all of which has been keeping him really busy during the off-season.
But first, Alexander is following in his father Stellan Skarsgard’s footsteps by starring in Lars von Trier’s Melancholia playing Michael, the newlywed husband to Kirsten Dunst’s Justine, a flighty woman with some serious personal issues that start cropping up during their complicated wedding reception. Skarsgard only appears in the first half of the movie, so he missed all the fun waiting for the planet Melancholia to come crashing to earth destroying all life with Dunst, Kiefer Sutherland and Charlotte Gainsbourg, but ComingSoon.net sat down with Skarsgard a few weeks back, just after the film’s premiere at the New York Film Festival to talk about all these things.
In the video interview below, you can hear a rather relaxed Skarsgard talking about:
* How he learned about Melancholia
* If he’d ever visited his father on a Lars von Trier set
* How his father urged him to work with von Trier
* How tightly-scripted the movie was
* How von Trier works out and films the scenes
* What filming the star-studded wedding reception was like
* Whether he got any background on his character
* How much he knew about the second half of the movie
* How busy he’s been keeping during the off-season of “True Blood”
* He talks a little about his upcoming movies The East, What Maisie Knew and Disconnect.
* That crazy Battleship trailer!
And More!
Melancholia has been playing on VOD for the last month, but if you’re in New York or L.A., you can see it the way it’s meant to be seen, on the big screen, this Friday, November 11, and then in other cities starting November 18. You can find out exactly where and when the movie is playing theatrically on the official site.
