The beginning of “Murderbot”: Killer Robot himself from Alexander Skarsgård
Alexander Skarsgård’s security robots are free to set up and name this clip from the Apple TV+ series “MurderBot”.
Alexander Skarsgard revealed that he has ousted his first taste of fame as a Swedish teenage television star from his acting for years.
The “True Blood” alumni (48) opened on the July 21st episode of the “Incredible Self-Consciousness” episode of the “Dax Shepard” podcast after his breakout role in the 1989 Swedish film “Hunden Som Log”.
“It was rough. I didn’t like being recognized. I didn’t like going to school or kids like, ‘I saw a movie!”, Skarsgård told Shepard and Cohost Monica Padman. “My confidence was in the drain.”
He continued: “I said, ‘This is terrible, and I did one 50-minute TV movie. I don’t want to keep doing this.”
It was almost the end of his acting career. It has since been seen Skarsgard win an Emmy and a Golden Globe.
“I retired and threw a towel at 1pm,” he added.
Alexander Skarsgard on his first role: “The Classic Case of Nepotism”
Skarsgård first acted as a seven-year-old in 1984’s “Ake and His World.” This happened because of a “classic case of nepotism,” he admitted on the podcast, explaining that his father’s friend, late actor and director Alan Edwal, had offered him a gig.
Skarsgård’s father is Stellan Skarsgård. “Good Will Hunting”, “Mamma Mia!” and “Dune” fame – and three of his seven young brothers – brothers Gustav, Bill and Balter’s Skarsgard – are also actors.
“Even if my father was an actor, my younger brother, he was adamant about ‘I’m going to be an actor’ from when he was like five or six. And I wasn’t,” Skarsgard said on the podcast. “I did some weird jobs here and there, but I wasn’t pursuing that.”
“It wasn’t a difficult decision,” he explained that he would be quitting acting as a teenager. “I said, ‘I don’t want to be an actor. I just want to drive a serve, so I just stopped doing that.”
He went in the opposite direction from his “Bohemian” parents and eventually enlisted in the Swedish Navy.
“In my teenage years (I) declared that I would not chase my father and become an actor,” Skarsgård said. He said at the time, “What do you know? I’m going to leave and go out on my own on an archipelago island far from all Skarsgard.”
He continued later: “You don’t need to join the army for a year and a half to become independent. I would not recommend it.”
“Zoolander” has brought Alexander Skarsgård back to acting
Skarsgård briefly went to Marymount Manhattan College in New York City before returning to Stockholm where he did “strange work” as a coffee shop, clothing store and a bus boy. In the late 1990s and early 2000s, he booked several Swedish TV shows and movies.
He found his way to Hollywood when another opportunity landed on his lap, courtesy of his famous father.
His father’s manager sent him to an audition for “Zoolander,” Skarsgård said. “And I booked that baby.”
“I just thought, ‘Yeah, this is how Hollywood works. You step into the room, Ben Stiller is sitting there, and you are!” he joked.
