Check Out Skarsgard Whipping Up the Hammarby Football Crowd
Someone posted this link in a discussion about whether Skarsgard is “intimidating enough” to play Tarzan. Pretty interesting — I hadn’t seen it previously. More to the point, I hadn’t seen this in his character or personality. Interesting indeed.
Hammarby is a popular Stockhold football club — here’s a pic of Hammarby supporters on the “annual march to the stadium.”
3 comments
Yes,I am familiar with this side of his personality/ character as not only havE I seen these videos before ( his fans think he’s part hooligan) but this side was on display in character ,Eric Northman, on Tue Blood who could and did intimidate a whole roomful of vampires by just swaggering into it . He was the most ferocious and Bad Ass vampire on the show and at times he let go of his usuall tightly reined control and it was truly awesome. Eric was a Viking Warrior Prince when he was human and it showed all over him. Alex, deliberately selected roles that were the opposite of Eric Northman when he was on hiatus to get a break from playing such an intimidating alpha male. Those who are only familiar with those roles would certainly have a hard time believing he could be intimidating enough as Tarzan. Those who saw him as Eric Northmsn have no trouble at all. Alex has said in several interviews that he invisioned the manner and behavior of a male lion when he built his characterization Eric Northman as well as finding that part within himself that was dominating and menacing, So, yes indeed ,he is fully capable of delivering the dangerous primal side of Tarzan.
In real life most of the time Alex strikes me as not alpha male, there’s too much evidence of his being a giant goofball rather than some intimidating person. Most of the time. The first video shows that he can go pretty full on hooligan-especially when drunk (that weekend was his birthday and his brother’s bachelor party, he appeared to be drunk most of that weekend). And in the Alex fandom there was some worry about that video, that perhaps he was too publicly drunk, etc. Though it seems to have helped land the role of Terry in War on Everyone:
http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/john-michael-mcdonagh-talks-jet-864202?utm_source=twitter
There were also a couple of times during the filming of Generation Kill:
“The other reason he quarantined himself from the rest of us was because when he did go out, he was the wildest party animal I have ever seen. The two occasions we went out, Alex sang the Swedish football anthem and tried to fight an entire town. After that I was like, “Yeah dude, I get why you won’t hang out with us, if you get killed or go to an African prison, the producers are gonna be pissed.””
http://www.theguardian.com/media/organgrinder/2009/mar/20/james-ransome-the-wire-generation-kill
So while Alex hasn’t engaged in that sort of behavior for some time, it is part of his personality. And Alex has played intimidating alpha males before, especially Charlie Venner and Eric Northman (Brad Colbert’s an alpha, but not physically intimidating). He’s an actor, he can go intimidating when he needs to, it’s his job. One that he’s good at.
Yes,most of the time the side of Alex’s personality that’s most often on display is the giant goofball / cuddly teddybear attested to by most of the people he’s worked with. But then there’s another side that’s mostly reined in and kept under wraps,showing only when he’s drunk or using it for inspiration for a character such as Etic Northman or,as I understand it, Terry Monroe in War on Everyone who is variously described as a ” bulldozer” or as ” stamping ” people into the pavement. In this jet black comedy Pena is the brains with the verbal skills and Terri is the mostly the drunk brawn applying the muscle when needed. As BC so aptly pointed out this video so impressed McDonough that he knew that Alex could play a believable drunk and, most likely, that be convincing as the intimidating muscle man as well.