When informed that he’d landed in Academy history books with his Best Supporting Actor nomination for “Sentimental Value,” Stellan Skarsgård had a characteristic deadpan reaction.
“I didn’t deliberately do it,” he said with a wry smile.
The Swedish actor, a lodestar in world cinema for more than 50 years, became the first actor in an international production ever nominated in the supporting actor category. “Oh, wow, I didn’t know that, but it’s lovely,” he continued. “As far as I can remember, there was only one Scandinavian actor nominated before, and that was (two-time nominee) Max von Sydow. So it’s such a small chance that this kind of thing happens.”
One of the least pretentious performers in movies, Skarsgård gives another freestyle performance in “Sentimental Value” as Gustav Borg, a rascally director at odds with his two adult daughters, for which he won the Golden Globe in January.
The movie earned nine Oscar nominations, including Best Picture, Best Director (Joachim Trier) and for all four of the main actors (Renate Reinsve, Inga Ibsdotter Lilleaas, Elle Fanning and Skarsgård).
And how appropriate that Skarsgård became the performer to crack that foreign-film ceiling in the supporting-actor category, given his career-long dedication to working within large casts. He’s the cream in the Campari, the pinch of salt that instantly enhances the recipe’s flavor.
“Oh, I’m an ensemble actor, totally,” he said without hesitation. “I always have been. I don’t do solos. And I’m so happy for my fellow actors, my wonderful peers, in this film, too. My favorite thing is being a part of the big group and we all go and make a film together.”
He added, as if describing a reunion of friends in a big chalet, “My favorite thing is being a part of the big group and we all go and make a film together.”
Though his career began in Scandinavia, he’s been leaping between genres ever since the 1990s in roles such as a paralyzed husband in “Breaking the Waves,” a sly math professor in “Good Will Hunting,” a barnacled seaman in “Pirates of the Caribbean,” a virile travel writer in “Mamma Mia!,” a nice guy with dark secrets in “The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo,” a grumpy Soviet commissioner in “Chernobyl,” a cunning spymaster in “Andor” and a grotesque baron in “Dune.”
Skarsgård is proud of his Swedish heritage, having made his debut on a popular TV show when he was just 16. However, he has been unafraid to express a personal disdain for his nation’s most venerated filmmaker, Ingmar Bergman, who he found to be mean and manipulative when they worked together 40 years ago.
Some critics have surmised that Bergman was an influence on the revered film director Skarsgård plays in “Sentimental Value.” But he denies that and, looking closely, the reference would seem a bit cheap and lacking in irony for his taste.
In fact, director Joachim Trier and his co-writer Eskil Vogt wrote the part with the actor in mind, and it contains some hard truths about aging, egotism and parental abandonment. For Trier, those qualities were the reason it needed to be played by Skarsgård, with his relaxed charm and lightness of touch as a point of contrast.
“I’ll be up shit’s creek if you don’t do this,” the director told him when they met for lunch to discuss the part, to which Skarsgård replied, “That’s not a great place to be, is it?”
“It’s so wonderful to be asked to use your entire palette of colors for a role,” he said. “Because then it makes a full person and gives him life. I like being funny, and this character is someone who gives his little grandson DVDs of movies like ‘The Piano Teacher.’ And I haven’t done exactly that, but many can imagine me doing something similar. I love that this sad character is very funny, especially when he’s trying desperately to reach out to his daughter that he loves.”
Oscar nominee Reinsve plays that daughter, Nora, an emotionally turbulent actress who refuses to even read the script for her father’s long-gestating comeback film. Gustav is attempting to reconcile with her, “but he’s doing the wrong things,” Skarsgård said. “He’s saying the wrong things, and it’s so clumsy, emotionally.”
Family is at the heart of “Sentimental Value,” and Skarsgård is aware that his eight children from two marriages will probably watch “Sentimental Value” in eight different ways.
He’s the patriarch of an acting dynasty, with several of his kids finding success as actors, among them Emmy winner Alexander Skarsgård (“True Blood,” “Big Little Lies”), Bill Skarsgård (“It,” “Nosferatu”) and Gustaf Skarsgård (“Vikings,” “Westworld”). When Alexander hosted “Saturday Night Live” in late January, the elder Skarsgård made a few cameo appearances, including in a sketch parodying the glum seriousness of Nordic cinema.
Skarsgård suffered a health setback in 2022, when a stroke affected his memory and focus. But he managed to power through the filming of “Dune: Part Two,” the second season of “Andor.” Dialogue is important in “Sentimental Value,” but Skarsgård is particularly proud of a wordless moment midway through the story, when he and Renante’s characters step outside to smoke a cigarette together.
“That scene is beautifully done, because you know enough about the characters by that point in the film and it’s a little moment of ‘Wow,’” he said. “It’s the only scene I have with Renate where she is not against me. You get to see the release of tension in my character.”
At the age of 74, the actor is also conscious of the poignancy within a small plot thread in “Sentimental Value,” where his character visits a lifelong collaborator, a cinematographer who walks with a cane. Skarsgård’s Gustav, himself not a young man, is visibly repelled by his friend’s immobility and age. (The little subplot between them concludes in the film’s warm Trieresque ending.)
“Joachim is such a wonderful director in that sense, in the way that he takes care of everyone and he’s loyal to every character,” Skarsgård said with deep sincerity in his voice. “He doesn’t leave any character out in the cold. It’s a very humanistic way of making art.”
A version of this story first appeared in the Down to the Wire issue of TheWrap’s awards magazine. Read more from the issue here.
