Stellan Skarsgård

Stellan Skarsgård

Stellan Skarsgård portrayed Professor Erik Selvig in Thor, The Avengers, Thor: The Dark World and Avengers: Age of Ultron.

Significant roles

• Bombi Bitt in Bombi Bitt och jag (1968)
• Horace in Hustruskolan (1983)
• Hamlet in Den tragiska historien om Hamlet - Prins av Danmark (1985)
• Carl Hamilton in Täcknamn Coq Rouge (1989)
• Carl Hamilton in Förhöret (1989)
• Gregers Werle in Vildanden (1989)
• Captain Tupolev in The Hunt for Red October (1990)
• Nathan Van Adams in Parker Kane (1990)
• Raoul Wallenberg in God afton, Herr Wallenberg - En Pansiosshinstoria från verkligheten (1990)
• Carl Hamilton in Den demokratiske terroristen (1992)
• Jan Nyman in Breaking the Waves (1996)
• Prof. Gerald Lambeau in Good Will Hunting (1997)
• Tappan in Amistad (1997)
• Peter Dominic in Savior (1998)
• Gregor in Ronin (1998)
• Jim Whitlock in Deep Blue Sea (1999)
• Felix in Kiss Kiss (Bang Bang) (2000)
• William Granther in Passion of Mind (2000)
• Alec in Signs & Wonders (2000)
• Lise's Mand in D-Dag (2000)
• Alex Greene in Timecode (2000)
• Lise's Mind in D-Dag - Lise (2000)
• Dr. Wilhelm Furtwänger in Taking Sides (2001)
• Lise's Mind in D-Dag - Den færdige Film (2001)
• Terry Glass in The Glass House (2001)
• Tyrone in No Good Deed (2002)
• Joseph Kaspar in City of Ghosts (2002)
• Theseus in Helen of Troy (2003)
• Chuck in Dogville (2003)
• Cerdic in King Arthur (2004)
• Father Lankester Merrin in Exorcist: The Beginning (2004)
• Father Lankester Merrin in Dominion: Prequel to the Exorcist (2005)
• Hrothgar in Beowulf & Grendel (2005)
• Bootstrap Bill Turner in Pirate of the Caribbeans: Dead Man's Chest (2006)
• Stangl in Guilty Hearts (2006)
• Francisco Goya in Goya's Ghost (2006)
• Bootstrap Bill Turner in Pirates of the Caribbean: At the World's End (2007)
• Eddie Argo in w Delta z (2007)
• Birger Brosa in Arn - Tempelriddaren (2007)
• Bill in 'Mamma Mia! (2008)
• Biger Brosa in Arn - Riket vid vägens slut (2008)
• Commander Richter in Angels & Demons (2009)
• Ralph in Metropia (2009)
• Jack in Melancholia (2011)
• Martin Vanger in The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo (2011)

Quotes

• "I had a great time. I also had a great director there. Kenneth Branagh is one of the funniest directors on the set. You laugh a lot. He’s very skillful. We were also allowed to have rehearsals before we started, and discuss the writing and change the scenes. It felt like you were invited to a very nice collaboration. It’s another film done in the real world, where my scenes are."
• "Me and Natalie Portman and Kat Dennings are doing research on strange atmospheric and space stuff going on in the sky in New Mexico. And then, we meet Thor."
• "I haven’t [watched the movies]. That’s not the kind of homework I did. I’m not sure that would have helped. And, I was not familiar with Thor at all, when I started, but I became familiar. They gave me comic books and stuff, and [Kenneth Branagh] educated me."
• "I don’t know, since I haven’t seen them. But, it’s something that is a part of modern mythology. Every culture has their myths that people are aware of and share. They vary throughout the ages, but in America, it’s those myths."
• "I chose 'Thor' because of director Kenneth Branagh. The script was nice and we got to rehearse and talk to the writers and do some collaborating in the process to make it fit us. So I had a very happy time on it. What I always try to do is immediately do something I just haven’t done so I get variation in my life. I’ve made about 90 films and if I did the same thing over and over again I would be bored by now. I try to pick different films, I go and do those big ones and having done that I can usually afford to go and do some really small obscure films and experiment a little."
• "It was just a couple of months ago, and I was happy to meet Sam again. I flew over there, and went down into a basement and talked to Sam for a couple of minutes and then went back home."
• "No, that was with the director Joss Whedon who's doing The Avengers. So, I'll start shooting Avengers now soon."
• "I know what's going to happen to my character in that film, but I'm not allowed to say anything. I'll have to sell my house to pay the fines for that!"
• "It was shot by Joss about half a year or more after we finished shooting Thor. So that was the first time I had worked with Joss and I think the forth time that I worked with Sam (Jackson)."
• "Yes. When we shot the tag from Thor to Avengers, we shot it with a 3D camera that was a horrible contraption with two cameras and the mirror and stuff. It was extremely clumsy. I was considering not wanting to do the film if we were going to shoot it with machinery like that. But they decided to shoot The Avengers now on the small electric cameras and then digitally make the 3D afterwards, which is much more comfortable. I prefer to work with light and fast equipment because as an actor if you have to wait twenty minutes every time they change a lens the energy sort of fades out of the performance."
• "No it was not because I don’t think they had the final story for The Avengers ready at that time. So that developed last fall when they contacted me and asked me if I wanted to be in The Avengers. Then they started sending me pages and stuff."
• "Well when you sign up for these films, because of the way Marvel works, you are prepared to do five films for them and you negotiate for all those films. So I’m on their payroll so to say."
• "Well with the scene we did in Thor, it was like Loki, one way or the other, entered Eric’s mind. And in Avengers, you will see more clarity in how Loki is using Eric’s mind."
• "(My character) is of importance but the size of the role is not big. It’s a small role and it is a pretty crowded film with a lot of actors in it."
• "Most of my scenes were with Tom Hiddleston, yeah."
• "I’m completing work now. I’m in New York to shoot the final scene of the movie so I will be wrapped here in a second."
• "It’s been very nice. He is a lovely man. He’s very different in energy from Kenneth Branagh. Every time you make a new film you sort of meet a new temperament but he has been very lovely to work with and you feel freedom to come with your own input and have fun on the set."
• "It’s incredibly impressive. I mean those stories are modern American mythology and there are tons of fans out there to who these characters are very vivid and living. But if they would have done those films fifteen or twenty years ago they would have concentrated on just the special effects, but now they are hiring the best writers, the best directors, and the best actors which means specific quality products that are entertaining to people who are not even familiar with those super heroes."
• "I had no idea what the future of Selvig would be after Thor, but one thing I knew was when you sign on to a Marvel film, you’re on the hook for five. When the film begins, Selvig is working for S.H.I.E.L.D. and Nick Fury has a big concern because something is going wrong with the experiments on the Tesseract. Unbeknownst to him, he actually ends up opening a portal to another universe and Loki shows up and that’s when the fun really begins."
• "I will try to combine Thor 2 which starts in August and goes to the end of December with the new Lars Von Trier film."
• "Thor 2 I have already begun. We have done some filming in London, and will run on in November. As for The Avengers 2 I have not heard anything about me to be with or not. I’m under contract, so if they want me, I have no choice. The role of Thor 2 is about as big as the last. New director, yes. Alan Taylor who has done some Game of Thrones."
• "Joss Whedon is an extremely intelligent nerd. He is an expert on all this stuff, then writes he is terribly good. That he managed to write that Avengers script, I was very impressed the first time I read it. Ten heroes to keep track of, and hold together the story. But the success he is having in any way. He was very pleasant to work with, but also very tired. What an incredible load of pulling in over six months."
• "They have an option on me. I don't know what decisions they'll make, but they have an option on me for the next Thor movie."
• "When you're standing naked at Stonehenge, you don't think of the enormousness of the universe you're in. You think of the cold and how small your dick will be, if Disney is allowed to show it! But I worked with very good directors and I've had a lot of fun doing it. Of course, doing Selvig is not as challenging as it is to do River, but it doesn't mean it's boring. I'm having a lot of fun."
• "I wasn't supposed to be there in the first place. Then they called me and they'd written a couple of scenes. I went and did them and you didn’t know if they were going to end up in the film or not. I want them to make as good a film as possible. I don't care if I'm in it or not."

Trivia

• Stellan's son is Deadpool 2 actor Bill Skarsgård.

Stellan Skarsgård on Wikipedia