New photos of Alexander Skarsgård, Stellan Skarsgård, Tarik Saleh, Gustaf Skarsgård and Sam Skarsgård at the after party for the world premiere of The Northman in Stockholm, Sweden.
Photos found on Instagram (3/30/2022):
dellert_photography Here are some of my photos from the afterparty to the gala premiere of The Northman. Steered by the power couple @zeketastas & @eijalo #thenorthman #thevikingmuseum #skarsgard
So I managed to track down a biography of Stellan’s, published in 2000 by Gunnar Rehlin. Apparently there a part 2 but I’m yet to track that down as a hard copy.
So…..I’m translating through Google as my Swedish is a long way off yet! So here is chapter one……..
STELLAN
Chapter one:
LA November 1999
Chateau Marmont is the most famous hotel in Hollywood. It sits at 8821 Sunset Boulevard in an area of Los Angeles that is nice to walk in. Here, for example, across the street you can see one of these fantastic news stands with it’s range of all the worlds publications that are so typical of LA.
Near the hotel is row of restaurants and clubs. Most famous of the latter – The House of Blues, founded by actor Dan Aykroyd and often visited by USA’s famous Blues and Rhythm & Blues stars. Aykroyd himself is best known for the wild comedy film The Blues Brothers, with the acclaimed comedian John Belushi, in the main roles.
And this brings us back to Chateau Marmont. It was namely Belushi that not only made the hotel famous, but also infamous. It was here in bungalow number 3, on Friday 5th March 1982 Belushi died of a heroin overdose. It was a death that shook Hollywood and got many actors with drug addictions to change their habits.
Chateau Marmont has for many become synonymous with the decadent Hollywood. ‘Belushi Hotel’ is now part of a guided tour where the tourists, in a hearse are transported to places where LA celebrities have died in a spectacular way.
Despite the macabre history, Chateau Marmont has succeeded itself as a renowned luxury hotel. However, the secluded location, the bloated architecture and the lush greenery give the hotel a more intimate feeling than, for example, The Beverly Hills or The Four Seasons give. And this is the reason Stellan Skarsgård thrives here.
“I don’t really know when I was here for the first time.” He says over breakfast, on a hot morning at the end of November. “But I enjoyed myself immediately. Since then I always live here when I am here in Los Angeles. Because it does not buzz with people and limousines as it does in other hotels in this city, despite the fact that people like Pierce Brosnan and Leonardo DiCaprio stay here. It’s nice. And since I often bring my family, it’s also a perfect place for the kids to run around.”
This time the Skarsgård family are staying in bungalow number 2 (“But I have actually once stayed in Belushi Bungalow” says Stellan) But he has also rented a suite in the hotels main building. This time it is needed as when Stellan Skarsgård starts to film, a larger group trip immediately starts. Preferably he wants the whole family to come along – wife My and the six children. This time the three youngest were allowed to come along. Bill, Eija and Valter (born 1990, 1992 & 1995). The other three, Alexander, Gustaf and Sam (born 1976, 1980 & 1982) – have already been here.
In the middle of breakfast Stellan’s mobile rings. It’s Alex and Gustaf ringing from Stockholm and want to hear how the family are doing and take the opportunity to get some tips from their experienced father. It’s going to be a long conversation, and one easily realises that a lot of Stellan’s earnings are spent on hotel room phone calls. The money from the film he is currently filming is actually not enough to cover the costs of having the family with him. This time it will even be a pure loss making deal according to Stellan.
When in the autumn of 1998 he did one of the main roles in Renny Harlins Deep Blue Sea, the whole family went to Mexico. There he rented an expensive beach villa, a kilometre from the studio, where he could retreat to prove a relatively normal life.
Skola På Mornarna
“The weeks get very checkered. In the mornings My has a school for the youngest children. Before we leave Sweden, she and their teacher draw up a schedule that she follows whilst we are abroad. When I am not filming, I read the script, keep in touch with my agent and manager and pay the bills via the internet. And when the kids are free, My usually takes them on excursions to things like Disneyland. I’m only happy if I can avoid it.”
Considering all the films that Stellan makes abroad, the family spend more and more time in foreign lands. Stellan believes that children feel good and learn a lot about other cultures, they get a chance to learn new languages while they are together with mamma and papa.
“What can be difficult for them is to be pulled away too often and sometimes they miss their peers. On the other hand they have each other and are often visited by friends and relatives”.
My also believes the positive aspects outweigh the negative, saying “It works very well and I keep in contact with the school via email. And because this teaching is so focused on these children, it means they are often ahead of the school work when we get home. And you can see what experience the older children have had – they are not the least bit lost when go out and travel on their own”.
My said it was a bit hard for Eija when the recording of Deep Blue Sea started filming – “She was about to start first grade and began by being away for several months. When she got home, she didn’t know anybody in the class. But now she has established herself there, there are no problems at all”.
My believes that it is very important for Stellan that the family goes with him, as often as possible. He says, “Although it’s important to have a fixed point, I love the hobo life. I have a very good routine of getting a normal life started quickly, as soon as we get to a new place. Sometimes, it can be difficult, like in Mexico, when I would have to start driving there. But the circles are widening more and more and there have never been any real problems”.
I understand Stellan finds Los Angeles tough to be in. But that does not worry me. Being an ordinary person here is easy.
“I prefer we live in a house. Preferably as large as possible so that not only the family can fit but but so that we can also accommodate guests, otherwise it would be a liitle bit hard. I would rather of us stayed in a house than on Chateau Marmont, but this time we didn’t have time to arrange it.
During this visit to LA in November 1999, Stellan takes the male lead in the new Mike Figgis film Timecode. It’s an experimental film made in a single shot with four handheld cameras. This means you film the whole film time and time again, from beginning to end. After each recording, you look at the results, state what needs to be changed and watch on the screen what the four different cameras have filmed.
“I have actually been able to walk to work everyday because the studio is so close. And everyday I have met the same outsider, who asked how things were going with the job and the received >>sidewalk<<. But the other day I had to tell him that the recording is now over and that I will be going home soon”.
Then Stellan will also have the opportunity to care for his broken rib. During one of the shots, he fell badly and the battery for the microphone in his inside pocket broke a rib on the right side. “It hurts terribly. They say it will take five weeks before it heals” he says with a grimace.
Inside bungalow number 2 the children sit and watch TV. On the other side of the house is a swimming pool. Even though it’s morning and late November, it’s already hot in the air. My sits down on a deck chair and says “I have no desire to go home. I thrive in this climate. I do not feel in the slightest to get back to rain and snow again. I hate winter.
A few days later, it’s time to go home. One month in LA will now be swapped for a Swedish winter. And for Stellan something unusual as some time off. He will spend the time until Christmas and New Year to recharge his Swedish batteries, hanging out with friends and family, thinking about upcoming film projects and doing lots of cooking
NINETEEN FILMS PER YEAR
From the summer of 1998 he has in principle worked in a streak.
After “Deep blue sea” recording in Mexico he travelled to Paris to do “Passion of Mind” with Demi Moore as co-star. Thereafter it was time for the film “Signs and Wonders” with Charlotte Rampling and Deborah Unger as co-stars. Then followed the Norwegian “Aberdeen” largely recorded in Scotland before heading to Canada and “Harlan County War” with Holly Hunter as co-star. And so now just over a year later, “Timecode” in Los Angeles. This is a work schedule that leads one to believe that Stellan works on his own time code of extraordinary pattern.
“I reckon that I in one way actually have done 19 films in under a year. We took namely all Time Code fifteen times before we felt satisfied.”
Since 1997 when he did “Glasblåsans Barn” (Glassblower’s child) he has not worked in Sweden. But there has been no shortage of offers.
“No but some have simply not worked in time so I had to say no for that reason and second, I was not interested. I have been offered to do adventure films in Sweden but why should I do that when I could do the same thing in the USA for a shorter time and leads to 20 times more money and I can take the family with me.
On the contrary, I have of course done films both in Denmark and Norway. It can be as if it has happened so many days that are much more exciting. They have more personable directors who do more odd films than what one does in Sweden.
It is also about in the USA the big companies often don’t know what they will do in an upcoming summer. Therefore it is difficult to combine work in Sweden with work in USA. In Sweden they ask a year before and it is difficult to be able to immediately accept.”
For Stellan it is tough to have many projects and cope for a long time in advance.
“For me it was a troublesome one in 1999 to know that I had three films in advance as I would do. It was like having three big mountains to climb, three pieces of Kilimanjaro in a row. You are always a different person after doing a film and go straight into the next is tough. The ideal would be to work with a project at a time and when it is clear to decide for the next.”
TRÖTTA DEMONER
Even if he can appear calm himself he says he is in many ways neurotic.
“I can also be bad and have problems with demons haunting my life. Though if I have demons, I am not sufficiently interested in them. They get tired if they do not get some attention”.
He says he always gets very nervous before an upcoming recording.
“Everything you have to deal with in an everyday life becomes distracting, a lot arises, there are a lot of everyday problems, at the same time I feel that should bait me for upcoming films. My cooking becomes easy. I have no time or energy to bait me for complicated matters. I become slightly irritated and I have a shorter fuse then there it is all round the family to be moved by so much practical shit.
It’s the same for every film. I think about the old man I am going to be and be able to make sure I have time to find him as I should, and I don’t chastise the family for as much time as I should. There would be a conflict.”
Stellan says that nervousness remains when recording begins.
“The first two weeks I often want to redo it and I think what I have done works. But you never get that opportunity to”.
The start of a recording infers he often feels his blood pressure go up.
“Soon it goes down after we have held on for a couple of weeks. Then it becomes normal again”.
He must consider himself as neurotic. But he isn’t worried about becoming unemployed.
“There will be scripts all the time. My agent and manager have rather a problem with booking me up on their own. But they are wise people and know that it is me who decides. They ask me and not the other way around.
They know that I never want to become some Hollywood star who shines in 5 years. My goods are my acting qualities. I am not handsome and tough as some American. To be able to compete I mix smaller films with less serious films”.
He likes to do American independent films and says that his name can then attract financiers (this is of course something which can grate the big studio films as also are interested in stars to be able to get for their financing). He explains what this implies.
“A film maker has an idea of what he wants to do a film of. The film maker has also ideas of which actor he wants to have in it. But then what happens is the intended financiers strike back at them saying “no chance do you want the money off us so you can take another actor instead”?
“It happened to me actually for some years since. Wayne Wang wanted me in lead role in his Chinese Box to play out in Hong Kong. But the financiers said no. They want Jeremy Irons instead. And so it became as if it not existed. Some would think of saying “come again guys, there is a new Jeremy Irons film repertoire we must rush to see it”.
Bilim adamı olmak naif olmaktır. Gerçeği aramaya o kadar odaklandık ki, gerçekte ne kadar az kişinin onu bulmamızı istediğini hiç görmedik. Fakat görsek de görmesek de, tercih etsek de etmesek de gerçek hep orada. Gerçek ihtiyaçlarımızı ve isteklerimizi umursamaz. Hükümetlerimizi umursamaz, ideolojilerimizi, inançlarımızı… her zaman pusuda bekler. Bu, sonunda, Çernobil'in hediyesi. Bir zamanlar, gerçeğin bedelinden korkuyordum… Şimdi sadece şunu soruyorum: ‘Yalanların bedeli nedir?’
