Alexander Skarsgård: ‘I still have imposter syndrome moments’

His breakthrough roles came in HBO dramas Generation Kill and True Blood. His film credits include Melancholia, Infinity Pool and The Northman.

He won an Emmy and a Golden Globe for playing an abusive husband in Big Little Lies and was nominated again for playing a tech mogul in Succession.

He now stars in and executive produces Murderbot, an Apple TV+ sci-fi comedy about an android that secretly hacks itself to gain free will.

Murderbot is an offbeat comedy with an unlikely hero. What drew you to it? 

I wasn’t familiar with Martha Wells’s [book series] The Murderbot Diaries until [showrunners] Chris and Paul Weitz approached me. From the title, I was expecting something testosterone-fuelled, but I was pleasantly surprised. It’s about this socially awkward android who’d rather watch soap operas than get into trouble. I’d just made Infinity Pool and The Northman, two very intense projects with dark characters, so I was ready for something lighter and more comedic.

How is your own relationship with technology?

I’m a complete luddite. I can barely turn my cellphone on and off. If there’s something wrong with the wifi, I immediately freeze. Technology scares me.

Murderbot’s avoidance of eye contact and social-interaction difficulties have been interpreted as a metaphor for autism. Is that how you see it?

I didn’t lean into that when creating the character. He’s uncomfortable in social situations. He prefers structure and direct communication and tries to extract himself from anything emotional or confusing, so I played him as preferring solitude. He’s surrounded by these interplanetary scientists who are like space hippies. They invite Murderbot into their group, while he tries to escape at all costs. We can all relate to feeling uncomfortable in a room.

Did you develop a love-hate relationship with the costume?

It started out as love and morphed into hate [laughs]. We designed it to look like the most low-rent Stormtrooper in Star Wars. It felt like a human-sized condom: tight, thick and rubbery. It got really hot in there. But it also helped with the rigidity and deliberate movements of the character.

What’s it like seeing yourself naked without genitals on screen?

Not that different from every morning when I look in the mirror [laughs].

Would you like to do more comedy?

I’d love to. I guess on Succession there were some comedic elements, and it was a privilege working with [creator] Jesse Armstrong. I grew up watching British comedy, especially Armando Iannucci and his gang of collaborators. The Thick of It, Alan Partridge and especially Veep were formative for me. To this day, I go back and comfort-watch those shows.

Did playing Lukas Matsson in Succession give you a different perspective on the real-life tech bros who are increasingly dominating our world?

In figuring out who Lukas was, I tried to play someone with an incredibly short attention span who wanted to “move fast and break things”. Wasn’t that Facebook’s motto? Lukas was like a five-year-old who just wants new stuff to happen constantly. He’d do crazy shit just to see what reaction he’d get, like sending bricks of his frozen blood to his assistant say and do things just to see what would happen.

You’ve had some interesting on-screen relationships with Nicole Kidman, from her abusive husband in Big Little Lies to her playing your incestuous mother in The Northman. Would you like to work together again?

I adore her. My experience on Big Little Lies is what made us approach Nicole for The Northman. It was incredibly difficult on Big Little Lies to explore that intense, abusive relationship with Nicole but she’s one of the greatest out there for a reason. She’s so committed, generous and ego-free. She does whatever serves the scene. There was no question we wanted her as Amleth’s mother in The Northman, which is another very complicated, dark relationship. After that, Nicole and I basically said: Let’s do something else together but without any incest or abuse. Maybe a light romcom. Perhaps we could play siblings who open a cake shop together [laughs].

Your brothers Gustaf, Bill and Valter are also actors. Are you competitive with each other?

No. Maybe it would be different if we went up for the same role, but we don’t really. Imagine if we were all reading the same script, getting excited about the same part, then one of us got it but the others didn’t. You’d hear about it at every family dinner for years.

As the eldest son of the actor Stellan Skarsgård, are you glad you found success before the phrase “nepo baby” came along?

Yeah. I don’t know if it’s harder today but it’s probably more annoying. You have to discuss it more. When I first started, people still compared me to my father or asked if I got jobs because of my last name. I definitely questioned that as well in times of insecurity. Twenty years later, I still have imposter syndrome moments when I’m like, “I probably wouldn’t have gotten this if it hadn’t been for my dad. Fuck! Am I any good?”

You once lived in Leeds. How come?

When I left the military, aged 20, I didn’t know what to do. I was determined to find my own path and ended up studying English at Leeds Metropolitan University. Mostly I just got involved in student life, drinking pints of lager around Headingley. I did the Otley Run [a famous local pub crawl] a bunch of times. It was exactly what I needed. I adored that it was this working-class, gritty northern town and fell in love with the people. In fact, it was there that I started thinking about giving acting another go and applied to theatre school in New York. I sent in a tape, self-recorded in the library of Leeds Met, so that’s kind of where this all started. Leeds is my origin story.

Murderbot is on Apple TV+

Photograph by Erik Tanner/Contour/Getty Images