Alexander Skarsgård in Play Magazine/Play Magazine
Alexander Skarsgård’s role as Stone Hopper in Battleship is a far cry from playing the handsome, blood sucking former viking Eric Northman on True Blood and that’s just the way he likes it! Recently, the actor sat down to discuss his role in the Peter Berg action epic, how he feels about working with Stellen, his father and famed actor in his own right, and why he joined the Swedish navy at the age of 19 with Australia’s Play Magazine.
Playing someone in the armed forces isn’t new to Skarsgård. His exposure to American TV audiences came when he played a soldier in HBO’s Generation Kill which aired in 2008 as a mini series. This combined with a stint in the Swedish Military in his early years helped the actor really understand the role he was going for in Battleship. But according to him, the role is more than just about being in an action movie and facing off against aliens:
“It was more about the character and stuff about leadership and the dynamic and the relationship between officers and enlisted guys and little things like how do you address them? But it was also different; I play a commanding officer of a navy destroyer, that’s not what I did in the navy in Sweden.”
So why did the join the Swedish navy? Alexander admits that he was the product of a bohemian and artistic upbringing and that he comes from a family full of pacifists. But he says that the experience motivated him to do it:
“I’m from Sweden; no one is going to attack; we are not going to attack another country any time soon. It was more selfish, I wanted the experience, I wanted that challenge. Growing up a concrete jungle, I wanted to feel what it was like to be way out on the islands and there was this unit I was very intregued and interested in and so I applied and got it.”
Alexander Skarsgård at WonderCon 2012 with Peter Berg and Brooklyn Deckner/WENN/FameFlyNet
As for True Blood, he didn’t do the show that seemed to launch his career because he plays a vampire. Instead the actor maintains he did it because of creator Alan Ball whose work he is a fan of. When he met with Ball, he liked him a lot and the character of Eric was very interesting to him. Eric starts out like a villian but then Alexander says he began to understand him and fans have now been able to see a softer side of him and a sadness he’s enjoyed playing. However, that’s not the only thing Skarsgård is capable of playing:
“I’m fighting really hard not to get typecast, because to me that’s creative suicide in a way.”
Alexander Skarsgård at the Battleship World Premiere in Japan/Koki Nagahama, Getty Images
This is a fight he seems to be winning! Along with True Blood and Battleship, Alexander is set to appear in What Maisy Knew and the East later this year, all of which are very different roles. Speaking of acting, what has it been like for him to work with his dad Stellen, who in addition to playing opposite his son in Lars von Trier’s Melancholia last year, also starred in the American remake of the Girl with the Dragon Tattoo?
“Dad is one of my best friends so I love him so much. He is a really cool cat. We worked together on my first movie in 1983 back in Sweden and we have done an animated movie together-where we don’t work together you just do voices. But this was the first time we actually had some scenes together and it was an amazing experience.”
Alexander Skarsgård and brother Gustaf/Frazer Harrison Getty
After he did Melancholia with his father, Alexander says he took Battleship next for the contrast it would provide, not the summer blockbuster factor. In fact despite how fun, cool, and epic he found the movie, he says the relationship between his character Stone and his brother played by Taylor Kitsch drew him into the project. Director Peter Berg also helped. Being an actor himself, Berg was very open thereby creating a different environment than ones fellow actors had told Alexander about when they had worked on big budget films.
Skarsgård seems to have made peace with fame and attention, the very things that made him quit acting as a teenager, now that he is an adult. But he says that part of that came from the advice he received from his father about keeping his personal life private:
“He was always very protective of the family and of us kids and he could be very open and talk about his work and himself and his characters, but you wouldn’t see like 25 house tours or “welcome to the Skarsgård family and this is my home, this is what’s in my fridge.” I think that keeps you kind of sane and that’s important for me as well not to share everything with everyone.”
Battleship opens in Japan and Australia this week. It will hit theatres in the United States May 11th?
What do you think of Alexander’s philosophy? Will you be seeing Battleship? Tell me in the comments below!
Source: Herald Sun.au- “Play Magazine April 2012″
