Alexander Skarsgård at Sundance in the Acura Press Lounge to chat about doing drama, relationship rumors, and much more.
One thing that really struck me about this movie is that I’ve never seen an American movie that treats teen, female sexuality this way. Did it give you some sort of insight what it was like to be a teen girl?
“I felt that when I read the script. I felt that it was a unique story — a story that hadn’t been told before. It’s a really brave script. I think it’s a shame that we have seen so many coming-of-age stories with boys where they address sexuality, but when it comes to girls, they’re always waiting on the knight in shining armor to come in on the white stallion to save them, you know? As if the only thing teenage girls think about is marriage and kids, which I think makes young girls uncomfortable. Or, teen girls feel like that there’s something wrong with them if they think about sex, because, again, you never see that. So, it was very refreshing to read a script where a girl actually can address that.”
As a grown woman who was once a 15-year-old girl, it’s interesting for me to watch this and sympathize with her in wanting to have this sexy affair with an older man, and as an adult, know that that’s an abuse of power and wrong and terrible. It’s this mélange of hot but dirty but wrong…
“Right, and we spent a lot of time in prep talking about that relationship and making it nuanced and layered. It was important to me that Monroe wasn’t just a predator. It was important to find moments between Monroe and Minnie that were genuine and were real. Monroe kind of pulls himself out of that, and, like you said, realizes, ‘This is wrong, I’m a grown man. This is not [okay].’ But, then he’s drawn back into it again. So, it’s a very complex and interesting relationship to me.”
The Diary of a Teenage Girl book has such an intense fan base who are drawn to feminism, comic books, subversive art, sexuality — all that kind of stuff. It’s daring to take it on, and it’s always exciting to see a female writer and director.
“Right, and one who’s so badass and so good, you know? [laughs] When I met [director] Mari [Heller], she had that energy and that intensity, and I felt immediately that I wanted to work with this woman.”
Of course I was a huge fan of True Blood, but I’m also a fan of your work in The East, Melancholia, What Maisie Knew — all of these roles that seem to subvert your sexy image. Are you taking parts like these on purpose?
“Not at all. I really don’t have a plan or a strategy. When I read a script, it’s very basic. It’s all about do I connect or not? Is this something I’m creatively excited about? The combination of the script and meeting the filmmaker — you’re either excited or you’re not. I can’t say what I’m going to be excited about, or a specific genre, or a specific type of director, or a specific role. I have a tendency to be more inspired and more excited if it’s something that I feel like I haven’t done, you know?
“When I was on True Blood, every hiatus, I did actively search for roles that were different. Not because I felt that I needed to show people that I could play someone other than Eric Northman, but because I creatively wasn’t interested in — after shooting the show for seven months — going straight from that to playing a character that was exactly the same. Those three films that you mentioned were movies where I really felt like they were characters I hadn’t played before, and they had filmmakers that I was really excited to work with.”
Read the rest of this interview at Refinery29
Also, check out this on the red carpet interview with Alex at the festival below:
photo source: Zimbio.com
