Skarsgard is wooing awards voters with his performance, earning Gotham Awards and Bifa nominations so far
Alexander Skarsgard recently moved back to his native Sweden after 20 years of living in Los Angeles. Specifically, he moved to Södermalm, the Stockholm district where he grew up. It means he now lives “within a few blocks” of his father, Stellan Skarsgard, and a host of other close relations.
The locals tend not to bother the acting dynasty there, he says. “We’ve been in that neighbourhood since the 1980s, so people aren’t surprised to see us. There are so many of us, people are surprised if they walk down the street and they don’t see a Skarsgard.”
Anyone who attends an awards ceremony over the next few months may have a similar feeling, as it is entirely possible that three different Skarsgards will be among the nominees on each occasion: Stellan for playing a narcissistic director in Joachim Trier’s Sentimental Value; his son Bill for starring in Gus Van Sant’s hostage thriller Dead Man’s Wire; and Bill’s big brother Alexander for playing an enigmatic, sexually domineering gay biker in Pillion.
Alexander has already earned supporting performance nominations at both the Gotham Awards and British Independent Film Awards, while Pillion has proved a solid indie hit in the UK for Picturehouse Entertainment (£758,000/$1m at press time), with A24’s US release to follow next February.
“I haven’t seen Dead Man’s Wire,” says Alexander, “but I saw Sentimental Value at Telluride with my dad next to me and that was an incredible experience. I mean, he’s phenomenal in the film. And it’s been a real treat, the fact that Dad and I have been on parallel press tours, and we’ve been to a bunch of the same festivals and we’ve got to hang out.”
Then, without a moment’s pause, the smile leaves his face. “But obviously,” he says, “if it came to it, if we were nominated in the same category… he’s going down. I’m starting a smear campaign tomorrow. It’s not going to be like, ‘Oh, I’m so proud of you, Daddy!’ It’s going to be, ‘He’s basically playing a version of himself in the movie. Is he going to get accolades for playing himself?’”
A laugh soon follows, but it is fair to say Alexander’s role is more of a stretch than his father’s. Adapted from Adam Mars-Jones’ 2020 novella Box Hill, Pillion is a sort-of romantic comedy from debut feature writer/director Harry Lighton, in which Skarsgard’s taciturn biker-gang leader Ray has an explicit BDSM relationship with the timid Colin (Harry Melling).
Skarsgard, 49, has taken on a staggering range of projects over the last few years, from prestige television (Big Little Lies) to effects-packed blockbusters (Godzilla Vs. Kong) to edgy indie films (Passing, Infinity Pool), but Pillion is unusual, even by his standards.
Still, he says, he did not hesitate to accept the part. When the screenplay arrived as an email attachment from his agents in autumn 2023, he was intrigued by the logline and by the involvement of director-driven production company Element Pictures. But it was Lighton’s script that sealed the deal.
“It was just phenomenal,” says Skarsgard. “From the first page, it just had me. I was so surprised by it, because I probably expected something more hardcore and darker throughout. It has some of those elements, but it was also so tender and sweet and funny and awkward, and even though it was about this specific subculture, I enjoyed the more pedestrian, mundane moments.”
It did not hurt that Skarsgard has held a motorcycle licence for 15 years, so no training was required.
Guerilla-style shoot
After one meeting with Lighton, which “instilled me with so much trust and confidence”, Skarsgard signed on both as an actor and as an executive producer. In August 2024 he flew straight from Toronto, where he had been shooting the first series of Apple TV’s Murderbot, to the production’s headquarters: a derelict former care home in Bromley, south London.
The lean budget meant almost every scene was set within a 10-minute radius to keep travel costs to a minimum, and town-centre scenes were shot guerilla-style among actual shoppers.
“It was a very small film with a very small, young crew,” acknowledges Skarsgard, but he adds that there was nothing small about the team’s talent and enthusiasm.
“It’s a great feeling when you’re on something and you feel that everyone is invested in telling the story. They’re not just there, clocking in, doing another job. You could feel they were so passionate about it, and that really affected myself and Harry [Melling] in front of the camera.”
Skarsgard demonstrated his own passion for Pillion at May’s Cannes Film Festival, where he was photographed wearing thigh-high leather boots. It was a fashion choice that led Mars-Jones to write in The Guardian newspaper that the actor’s “lack of interest in distancing himself from the part he plays seems to me unprecedented”.
Skarsgard shrugs off the compliment. “I wasn’t trying to be Ray on the red carpet, but I also felt like showing up in a grey suit was a bit boring. I just wanted to do something fun and playful to celebrate the movie and its themes.”
But what of Mars-Jones’ implication that it might be a risky career choice to associate himself so closely with Ray? “Yeah, but the roles that I might miss out on because I played a dom in a BDSM movie are probably roles I wouldn’t want anyway, so I don’t lose any sleep over that.”
As for the parts he does want, Skarsgard says: “At this stage in my career, I’m relishing the fact I have options, because I haven’t always had that. I’m in such a fortunate position where I can choose interesting projects with interesting people that I admire and that I also genuinely feel, yes, I want to spend three, four months on a set with you, and then a year travelling the world promoting this movie or TV series.”
He is not against mainstream, big-budget projects, he says: “Murderbot is fun and that’s a big-budget TV series.” But his next two films – Aidan Zamiri’s The Moment (with Charli xcx) and Alex Huston Fischer and Eleanor Wilson’s Wicker (with Olivia Colman) – are both indie experiments that are due to premiere at Sundance in January.
“I find there’s a bit more creative freedom on the smaller movies,” says Skarsgard. “You can take bigger swings and take bigger risks [with] narrative. It might not always work, but it’s more rewarding to work on something that excites you and feels different and original. When the budget comes closer to $100m or more, you have a lot of people invested in it who are nervous about returns, and it often feels a bit generic. That doesn’t excite me much.”
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