In season three of Succession, Alexander Skarsgård played a tech billionaire who gets invited to fancy parties and lives in impossibly-expensive mansions. In Robert Eggers’ The Northman, Alexander Skarsgård plays a mud- and blood-covered viking who has to avenge the death of his father. Guess which one was a more enjoyable experience.
“It was physically and mentally the most difficult job I’ve ever had, but also the most rewarding,” the ripped True Blood actor told Total Film about filming The Northman. “The days were really long and hard, and we were out in the mud, and up on these mountaintops with the wind and the cold. The week prior, I was working on the television show Succession, on which I play a tech billionaire in a villa on Lake Como.”
Skarsgård said he “literally went from playing one of the richest dudes on the planet in a crazy, beautiful villa, surrounded by yachts and helicopters and luxury” to flying to Iceland to “get shackled and dragged through the mud. It was definitely a waking-up moment and a humbling experience.” I have a sneaking suspicion that his Succession character would not have empathy for what his The Northman character went through.
Something like this:
The Northman, which also stars Nicole Kidman, Claes Bang, Anya Taylor-Joy, Ethan Hawke, Björk, and Willem Dafoe, opens on April 22.
(Via Total Film)
