Big Little Highs

From torso-bursting Tarzan to Nicole Kidman’s manipulative on-screen husband, Alexander Skarsgård is having the time of his life. He’s also a self-confessed woman’s man. And, it seems, the feeling is entirely mutual.

- Stephanie Rafanelli

During the shoot for English director Duncan Jones’ noir sci-fi Mute, filmed in Berlin at the end of 2016, Alexander Skarsgård sampled the city’s smorgasbord of nightlife, often with his co-stars Paul Rudd and Justin Theroux. “One of the best ones was a hot-chocolate rave at three o’clock on a Sunday afternoon,” he says, rhythmically flashing his eyes wider, as if to the pulse of strobe lights (this is just one of his eccentric tics). “To get in, you first had to be ‘cleansed’ by this woman with a feather... It was in some industrial warehouse – the only thing they served was hot chocolate, and there were five-year-old kids and their grandmothers on the dance floor. I was like, ‘Wow, this is totally crazy. I’ve never experienced anything like this before.’”

It’s not easy to elicit a “wow” from Skarsgård. As the eldest of six children born to Swedish hippies (his father is actor Stellan Skarsgård, the esteemed muse of art-house director Lars von Trier, while younger brothers Gustaf, Bill and Valter are all rising screen stars), he has seen a few “crazy” things in his 41 years. But he has cause for exclamation of late. His most recent “wow” moment was a kiss from Dolly Parton – to date, “the best kiss of my life”. This took place at last year’s Emmys, when she and her co-stars in his favourite girl-power film 9 To 5, Lily Tomlin and Jane Fonda, presented him with the Outstanding Supporting Actor award for his turn as Nicole Kidman’s abusive husband in the eight-time Emmy Award-winning Big Little Lies. “It’s such a girl-power story,” he raves of the show. Skarsgård flew into LA from a shoot in Spain for the awards as well as a welcome reunion with the female-dominated cast, including Kidman and Reese