“I just felt filthy in my soul”: survival, self-doubt, and Alexander Skarsgård’s long road to the top
Not even Alexander Skarsgård is immune to the stresses of career sustainability.
It’s often said among actors that the first job they ever have is the most challenging, and that’s not just a statement meant to encourage younger performers. Getting to take part in a professional gig for the first time is highly instructive, as an actor will learn things about the process that can’t be explained in any other way. Even if acting is a form of art, it’s also a job, and one that can be very stressful if the opportunities aren’t plentiful.
Alexander Skarsgård is a fascinating example of an actor who slowly found himself, even if he has always been earmarked as someone with talent, and while he had experienced some major disappointments in his career, in which he was unable to see his value as an actor, his willingness to take on unconventional and challenging roles has generated great acclaim.
While he has mastered the art of playing calm, collected characters with a great deal of confidence, Skarsgård revealed that the auditioning process often broke his spirit, and since most actors spend more time at casting calls than they do on set, it can lead them to develop negative feelings about their value as a performer, as even Skarsgård grew to feel when at auditions where he was “not connecting with the character at all”.
“I found those experiences, they were horrible, when you go in for something that you know you’re not right for, and you’re not connecting with a character at all, but you’re at a place where you feel like you can’t say no to the audition,” Skarsgård said, “I get a little PTSD, because I remember the feeling of coming back to my little shitty apartment in LA, you know, crying in the shower after a day like that. I just felt filthy in my soul and, like, zero confidence.”
While it’s likely that these roles were simply not right for him, Skarsgård admitted to feeling dispirited by his inability to find work. Unfortunately, the industry is still struggling with ways to address mental health concerns among aspiring actors.
“I was like, ‘I’m the worst actor in the world, and I also have no dignity because I go in and audition for this stuff. I’m wasting their time’,” he recounted, “It’s a rough feeling”.
Skarsgård may be the son of one of Sweden’s most famous film stars, but he actually got his big break thanks to a duo of HBO projects, one of them being Generation Kill, a gritty military drama set during the early days of the Iraq War, in which he played a member of the United States armed forces sent with unclear directions to head into enemy territory. He also appeared in the highly popular vampire series True Blood, which ran for seven seasons and became one of the most-viewed shows in the network’s history up until that point in time.
Although Skarsgård’s film roles were more hit-and-miss, he has now reached a point in his career where his sensitive, compassionate approach has garnered admiration. In addition to earning a Primetime Emmy Award nomination for his role in the final season of HBO’s Succession, he led Robert Eggers’ ambitious, Shakespearean Viking epic The Northman, and earned praise for his most emotional performance to date in the romantic dramedy Pillion.
