He danced with Meryl Streep in Mamma Mia!, traveled on board the Black Pearl of Jack Sparrow by playing Sputafuoco Bill Turner in the Pirate saga of the Caribbean, was (and is) one of the most loved actors by director Lars von Trier, in 2011 he joined the Marvel universe by playing Professor Erik Selvig. Stellan Skarsgård is considered one of the most versatile actors in international cinema: his career is being reviewed by the great European cinema (Miloš Forman, Lars von Trier, Joachim Trier), blockbuster incasse champions (Pirati dei Caribbean, Dune, Thor, The Avengers) and, finally, prestigious collaborations with several filmmakers, including Gilliam, Spielberg, Rafelson and many others.
In the last edition of the Golden Globe Skarsgård won the Best Actor Award in a film for Sentimental Value by Swedish director Joachim Trier, in Italian theatres since January 22, running so officially to conquer the Oscar statuette after being appointed for the same candidacy by the Academy. It is the second Golden Globe for the actor, after the one obtained for the HBO Chernobyl miniseries in 2019. But the awards don’t end here: Joachim Trier’s film also won the European Film Awards 2026, winning the main awards, including better director, better film and better screenplay. And for our Skarsgård also the award as Best Actor, shared with fellow Renata Reinsve (The worst person in the world) also protagonist of Sentimental Value.
Stellan John Skarsgård was born on 13 June 1951 in Gothenburg, a city in southern Sweden. His relationship with the recitation was born very early: at sixteen years he made his debut in a Swedish TV series in 1968, Bombi Bitt och jag (“Bombi Bitt e io”), a product that at the time earned him a huge popularity. In Sweden, in those years, there was only one channel and the energetic face of Skarsgård became immediately recognizable; in the words of the actor, the teaching of the parents was decisive not to lose the head: “It was an experience that would ruin me if I hadn’t had such extraordinary parents, because they made sure they kept me anchored to reality.” His acting training, first theatrical and then cinematic, takes place when he joined the Royal Dramatic Theatre in Stockholm, working hard on body and voice and preparing for the great classics of European dramaturgy.
The first important recognition came in 1982, when he won the Silver Bear as the best male performer at the Berlin Festival for the film Den enfaldige mördaren, directed by Hans Alfredson. The 1980s continued with work at home, alternating projects with several Swedish directors, including Bo Widerberg, Allan Edwall and Alfredson.
It is with the waves of fate (1996) by Lars von Trier that Skarsgård becomes known to the international public. The film is projected in Cannes, where he receives the Jury Grand Prix, also showing a very young Emily Watson, who was nominated for his performance in that year. Here the actor interprets Jan, a young Swedish woman who marries for love Bess, against the will of the Calvinist community in which they live. In this film, Skarsgård, forced by the character on a wheelchair after an accident at work, recites against everything and everyone, even himself, with the only force of the gaze and a real body manages to stand out thanks to a raw and intense performance. Trier pushes the Watson/Skarsgård couple on the obsession tracks, suspended between a deep nihilism for the human being and an ontological ending that interrogates the mysteries of the divine. For the Swedish actor is the launching trampoline that leads him to be noticed by several Hollywood directors. The first is Steven Spielberg, who acquits him for Amistad (1997), a story of the mutiny of the Amistad ship actually occurred in 1839.
During the filming of Spielberg’s film, Skarsgård receives a call directly from Hollywood. They want to see him in Boston two future promises of American cinema: Ben Affleck and Matt Damon. The two are working on the film that will change their career, Will Hunting – Rebel genius, directed by Gus Van Sant. Skarsgård accepts: he will say several times that what distinguishes a good actor from another is the instinct, both when he works at a scene “in which emotions emerge that you cannot explain rationally”, and when it comes to choosing a role. And that’s how he chose Will Hunting, a film that won numerous awards, including the Oscar as the best non-star actor in Robin Williams.
In the early 2000s he continued his collaboration with Trier in Dancer in the Dark (2000) and Dogville (2003). In 2004 he joined King Arthur of Antoine Fuqua. In 2006, another key role came: he entered the Pirate of the Caribbean saga by playing the Spitfire Bill Turner, father of Will Turner (Orlando Bloom), in The Curse of the Ghost Fortress, a role he will also take back to the World’s Limits (2007).
She follows the musical Mamma Mia! (2008) alongside Meryl Streep. The actor admitted: “I can’t sing, I can’t dance, but when I heard that neither Firth and Brosnan knew how to do it, I felt more comfortable.” In 2009, he landed in Italy for the Angels and Demons of Ron Howard, the second chapter of the trilogy from the novels of Dan Brown, where he played Commander Richter.
In 2011 he joined the Marvel Cinematic Universe with Thor of Kenneth Branagh, playing Professor Erik Selvig, a role taken in The Avengers (2012), Thor: The Dark World (2013) and Avengers: Age of Ultron (2015). On the character said: “When you sign for one of these films you actually sign for four… I felt like I sold the soul to the devil, but I had a lot of fun.”.
In the middle of the decade, he continued his collaboration with von Trier in Melancholia (2011) and in the two volumes I and II of Nymphomaniac. Return to work with Branagh in Cinderella’s live action remake (2015) and collaborate with David Fincher in Millennium – Men who hate women, ironically remembering the relationship with Daniel Craig on set.
In 2019 she played one of the most intense roles of her career in the Chernobyl miniseries, giving birth to Boris Ščerbina. In 2022 he was Luthen Rael in the Andor series and Baron Vladimir Harkonnen in Dune of Denis Villeneuve, a role also played in Dune – Part Two. Among the two films he faces a stroke that puts his life and profession hard to test: “It is extremely frustrating. But on the other hand, I am alive. I can work.” On the transformationism of Skarsgård (already experienced in the Pirates of the Caribbean) we play all the interpretation of Baron Harkonnen, a character who under the different layers of make-up and monstrous appearances, hides a thought far too rational and cunning, almost a modern “business manager” (as Skarsgård considers it), that is a satire not even too hidden on the unbridled and capitalist arrivism.
And it’s right on the Sentimental Value set that Skarsgård finally had the opportunity he had long been waiting for: “I finally make the director! Being an artist makes you feel like an all-inclusive profession that requires total dedication.” It is on the parallelism of private life and fiction that we must read the last role of the Swedish actor, for a film that bare all the difficulties inherent in parenting, especially for a father like Gustav/Stellan who feels he has neglected his children because of an entire life dedicated to art. In fact, Trier focuses on this, on the obstinacy of a director who, in order to complete his film, would betray the friend of a life. And he does it by insisting on the silences and the first plans of a Skarsgård in splendid form. Despite the difficulties as a result of the disease, the actor conquers the screen in each frame, and traps in his gaze both fascinating and inexpressible at the same time, the love and hatred of a daughter. As a reflex the other characters are reflected in him, in particular that of Nora (Renata Reinsve fetish actress of Trier), a daughter who considers herself so far away from the way of being of the father, but who instead turns out to be closer than he thinks.
Today, at 74 years old, Skarsgård feels “to the extras of life”. With eight children, three of whom established actors – Alexander, Bill and Gustaf – continues to consider cinema a fundamental presence. Behind every role or character, Skarsgård manages to always give a deep humanity, literally exploding the most complex meanings of the cinematographic and theatrical texts of which he speaks. In the Golden Globe speech he reiterated the value of the collective cinema experience: “When the lights turn off, share emotions with other people. This is magic. Cinema must be seen at the cinema.” The message is clear: defending cinemas.
L’articolo Stellan Skarsgård, a life for cinema proviene da SentieriSelvaggi.
