Stellan Skarsgard: MSN Interview

You’ve spent the majority of your career making smaller films. How do you move up to something this big?
I’ve made about 70 films and half or more of them are independent. I come from the independent film world in Europe – that’s the bulk of my experience. I still try to go between the big American films and the independent ones. The work in front of the camera is basically the same in both worlds.

 

Describe your character in Angels & Demons – Commander Richter.
He’s cool in the sense that he keeps his head clear. He doesn’t get very emotional over anything and he stays in control. He doesn’t doubt his own decisions or beliefs or anything. It gives him a strong punch!

Did you have to condition yourself for the part?
No I’m afraid not. I read about The Swiss Guard and I saw some documentaries to learn about them and the way the live. That was about it actually.

Tom Hanks has described as a very dedicated actor. Do you often surprise people on set?
Playing a scene is something that happens between actors. I’ll always make sure I’m there for a scene even if I’m off camera – which I think is what Tom was referring to – I hate to act towards a stick that someone’s holding off camera or something like that. So I like to ensure that other people don’t have to do that kind of stuff. It’s better to be there than not to be there.

Compare this film to working on Mamma Mia.
Well it’s pretty different (laughs). On this film I’m a tough guy who’s in control. In Mamma Mia I’m just a bimbo. It was interesting because all the strong characters on that film were women. The men in it were all just silly bimbo characters. I actually got a glimpse of what most female actors are used to experiencing.

Are you comfortable with the inaccuracies in the story?
If people take the elements that are described in the film as fact then that’s really, really worrying. I wouldn’t so much say that the story has inaccuracies as such. I’d just say that it takes creative liberties at several points.

What did you think of the book?
I read the book and I really enjoyed it. But when I came to meet with Ron Howard I told him that I didn’t think there was a character in there for me. But I wanted to work with Ron. Then the script came about and they’d constructed a character out of several of the book’s characters, which made it more interesting and I said yes. This was an incredibly international film with a cast from America, Sweden, Italy, Scotland and Spain as well as an international crew.

 

Was it easy to work together?
That happens more and more nowadays. There are a lot of international casts in movies. I like to think that most actors aren’t from different countries. We’re all from “actor-land” in my view.

 

Angels & Demons Video Special

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