A Guide To Alexander Skarsgård Playing Truly Despicable Men

At some point in his career, Alexander Skarsgård pulled a Cassie, turned to his agent and said, "Well if that makes me a villain, then so f**king be it. I can play the f**king villain." The 6'4" hulking Swede doesn't seem particularly villainous if you watch his interviews. He's charming. He's funny. He once went to a movie premiere in full drag. And yet, he has played every kind of foul, deplorable human imaginable. Murderer. Rapist. Pillager. Cult leader. Thief. Racist. Husband possessed by an evil wolf demon. When Hollywood is looking for someone to play a beautiful man with a hideous soul, they have Alex on speed dial. 

But why is this, you may ask? There are plenty of attractive leading men to pick from who aren't constantly homicidal on the big screen. Brad Pitt, Chris Hemsworth, and Bradley Cooper don't seem to give off "oh yeah he'd murder children" energy despite being muscly blonde men. But outside of Godzilla vs. Kong and The Legend of Tarzan, Alexander Skarsgård is rarely a hero. On today's little tour through Mr. Skarsgård's world of wickedness, we will attempt to answer this question. 

Spoilers for The Northman

Our first stop will be Mr. Skarsgård's most recent appearance on the big screen, that of Amleth in Robert Eggers' new gory viking revenge epic. And now you might be saying, Matthew, Alexander plays the hero in this film. He is after all basically Hamlet and Hamlet is the good guy who is avenging his father! (Well, brief side-tangent there: Shakespeare's play was actually based on an old Scandinavian character called Amleth, so it was ole Billy Shakes who was doing the letter shuffling. Eggers's movie, however, is only loosely based on either version as both the original Amleth and Hamlet are much more brainy and less hulking in their versions, but I digress). 

But Mr. Amleth (if I may be so bold) is truly a terrible human. After his father (who seemed mostly into war and farting) is murdered by his uncle, Amleth eventually becomes a mercenary who kills randos while imbued with a wolf spirit (not the last time you'll see that on this tour). He has no extracurriculars aside from killing and hunting down his uncle. He doesn't care about collateral damage. And he never does the therapeutic work to move past his father's death and find happiness as a fisherman, or whatever one does in ancient Iceland. When his mother (Nicole Kidman) tells him that she wanted her husband dead, and is happier with the uncle who likes farming, Amleth kills his mum and her new kid. When given the opportunity to flee with his hot young partner (Anya Taylor-Joy), he opts to go fight his uncle naked in a volcano instead. His reasoning is that the uncle will track them down and kill them all. But, Amleth, let's be real now. It's like 600 CE. They don't have Find My Friends. Move to some random farm in Finland, raise your twins, and you'll be fine. 

Being dead-set on revenge is not cute. It's called toxic masculinity. Go see Björk's witch doctor, who I assume is the medieval equivalent to Better Help, and let's get past this parental trauma. Even when Alex is playing a good guy, it's really a bad guy. (But perhaps the true villain is whoever decided to cast Skarsgård [45] as poor Nicole Kidman's [54] son only a few years after he played her wife. Yikes.) 

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Before we get to some more of these truly evil men, let's make a quick pitstop here with Michael, the nice (if a bit snoozy) husband of Kirsten Dunst's Justine in Lars von Trier's film about a depressed woman who gets married while a planet is headed directly to destroy Earth. Michael is by no means a bad person, but he is sort of a bad husband for not recognizing what Justine needs. Clearly, the woman is depressed. She should be seeing a therapist regularly and receiving mental health support from her friends and family. Michael's solution to her poor mental health, however, is to throw her an elaborate wedding, buy her an apple orchard, and pressure her into happiness. That is not, as anyone with a therapist can tell you, how happiness works. No amount of Red Delicious and Honeycrisp can cure depression, and using an orchard to convince your wife to be happy, and have raucous honeymoon sex with you, is not cutting it. The marriage is mercifully (for them both) short-lived, but Michael certainly will not be winning any Husband of the Year awards. 

Watch it on Prime Video. 

Spoilers for Succession

Succession is a show full of nothing but horrible people. Each worse than the last, and trying to screw over everyone else on their way to the top. Skarsgård arrives in Season 3 as the Swedish CEO of streaming giant GoJo, Lukas Matsson. Although he appears a bit apathetic on the surface, clearly he's just as power-hungry as every other suited menace inside or circling Waystar RoyCo. He's so good at success, it doesn't interest him anymore. Rather, now he's interested in failure (others' not his own). After Roman finds him in Kendall's treehouse and convinces him to seal a handshake deal by pissing on a cell phone (the way all good deals are signified), Matsson enjoys toying with the Roys, sending cryptic tweets and mixed messages before eventually screwing over Roman and his siblings in the finale. Sure there's a bit of vigilante justice here since he's screwing over ruthless media moguls, but he's still a bad person. And if he hasn't covered up at least three deaths resulting from his yacht parties, then I'll play Boar on the Floor. 

Watch it on HBO Max. 

This tour dictates that I attempt to summarize the plot of The Giver in order to explain to you how Alexander Skarsgård plays a villain in it. That is nearly an impossible task as the film adaption of this classic, young-adult sci-fi novel is nearly incomprehensible. Basically, somebody in this dystopian world decided people would be happier without any emotion, so people are genetically engineered without it and all memories of history are stored by one person, "the Receiver of Memory." That's Jeff Bridges, but he's getting old, so they gotta find a new one. Taylor Swift, his daughter, tried but was so overwhelmed that she opted to be "released" (aka killed somewhere) by the powers that be (aka Meryl Streep). Now, there is a new hottie named Jonas (Brenton Thwaites) who is getting the memories but thinks that they should be shared with everybody. In order to do that, he's got to go on a long hiking trip to the society's border (why? how the hell should I know?)This brings me to Alexander, who plays Jonas's dad. Because Jonas is trying to go south of the border, Meryl decides Jonas's girlfriend has got to be "released" and that Jonas's dad has got to do it (again, why?). The dad is all in on this plan because his mind has been altered by the evil society. So even though the true villain is Meryl (or T. Swift's acting coach, depending on how you look at it), they did cast Alex to be the prospective murderer of a child. Do you have any idea what The Giver is about from this paragraph? Probably not. But just know Alexander Skarsgård was going to "release" a teenager, and let's hurry on to our next film. 

Watch it on Netflix. 

Spoilers for On Becoming a God in Central Florida

If at first your marriage doesn't succeed, try try again. After Mr. Skarsgård couldn't make things work with Kirsten Dunst by giving her some Golden Delicious, he has regrouped and is making a second attempt to make the marriage work in this Showtime comedy. Spoiler Alert: he fails again. This time, he's trying to provide for his family (and pay for Kristen's adult braces) by getting highly involved in a pyramid scheme cult. And while that in and of itself seems ill-advised, he then goes and gets eaten by an alligator at the end of the first episode. Really not a good look here. Certainly less nefarious than some of his other roles, but if you're keeping score at home, he's been a bad husband three times already (four if you would include killing children as an affront to a marriage). Are we sensing a pattern? 

Watch it on Showtime. 

Just because Paula Patton can't cook fried chicken, doesn't mean you have the right to #disconnect from her. In this ensemble film about the ways we #disconnect from those we love, Skarsgård plays Derek Hull who has disconnected from his wife Cindy (Patton) after the death of their child. Derek, however, has not disconnected from his anger issues and so when their identities are stolen several years later, he drags Cindy around town to stalk the suspect. Not one to disconnect from his military roots, he's got a gun and is not afraid to threaten anyone with it. Again, it is time for Alexander's characters to disconnect from toxic masculinity and start handling adversity through therapy and unseasoned, unwashed, unspiced fried chicken raw because it was disconnected from the oil a bit too early. 

Rent it on Prime Video. 

Obviously no villain actor's resume is complete without a stint as a cult leader, and Alexander Skarsgård has got two for us to choose from. First up, he's playing Benji, the sexy leader of an anarchistic, vigilante group of environmentalists called The East, who hope to spread the good news of veganism by poisoning corporate big wigs. Sarah (Brit Marling) is the new girl in town and falls in love with Benji while they're force-feeding Big Pharma executives with antibiotics, bathing CEOs in toxic waste, and, the perennially flirty act, removing bullets. Skarsgård gets to use all his charisma here while also serving scary. It's easy to see why you'd join his cult, but also why you might get uncomfortable real quick. 

Watch it on HBO Max. 

If you want a cult that is less about activism and more about matching outfits, then you might opt for Skarsgård's cult leader in the music video for Cut Copy's "Free Your Mind." In it, the constantly shirtless Skarsgård wanders around a house full of lackeys who seem to be dressed in Squid Games cosplay. They're washing his feet. They're playing basketball without a ball. They're having sex while he watches. It should also be noted that this is the second time on this list where Skarsgård pees while someone else watches and the second time he is pretending to be a dog. IDK if he is listing these as skills on his resume, or if this is just a coincidence, but Skarsgård is a barking, full-bladdered baddie. 

Watch it on YouTube. 

While Skarsgård had certainly done plenty of acting before appearing on the HBO vampire drama in 2008, his role as Eric Northman certainly let him sink his teeth into the American consciousness. As his origin story, if you will, perhaps it's not surprising that an actor known mostly for being the complicated, vampiric, bad boy antihero, would end up playing a bunch of other characters on the bad boy to bad guy scale. Over the show's seven seasons we saw a lot of different sides of Eric (including plenty of his backside), but he will always remain the ill-fated third in the Sookie/Bill/Eric love triangle and the most villainous of the three. Coming from viking roots (perhaps there is a The Northman crossover coming?), and ending up the sheriff of Bon Temps, Northman has no trouble being violent (he's certainly done his fair share of blood-sucking) and he's always quick with a witty takedown. Perhaps he is redeemed by the end, but he's never the pure-hearted hero. 

Watch it on HBO Max. 

EVEN in a comedy, and EVEN when he's the hero, Alexander Skarsgård is still at least sort of a bad guy. Here at our halfway point on the tour, we see Skarsgård playing Detective Terry Monroe, an Albuquerque PD member who doesn't put much stock in the rules and regulations of law enforcement. He's ready to browbeat, blackmail, and backstab his way through cases because only losers take laws seriously. Yes, he is taking in foster children and breaking up child prostitution rings, but he's also swiping drugs he finds on stings. This is basically an iteration of his anti-hero True Blood character, who appears to be bad, but is really a softie a la Sawyer from LOST or Jamie from Game of Thrones. While he had more of these roles early in his career, this archetype falling a bit out of fashion has pushed him to take more straightforward villain roles, such as the next stop on our tour. 

Watch it on HBO Max. 

Spoilers for Passing

Really no silver lining on this one. Skarsgård goes full dark, no stars as John Bellow, the husband of Clare (Ruth Negga) in Rebecca Hall's directorial debut from last year. The film is about a pair of light-skinned Black women (Negga and Tessa Thompson) who reconnect after being childhood friends. Clare is married to John, but hasn't told him she's Black, which is a bit of a big deal because John is a racist. He spews hateful, white-supremacist statements in our initial meeting with him and is livid when he finds out that both his wife and Tessa Thompson were in his hotel room. The high point of his parade of horrors is when he may have (read: most definitely) murdered his wife by shoving her out of a penthouse window. Hollywood asked, "Who gives racist, wife-killer energy?" and called Alexander Skarsgård's agent. 

Watch it on Netflix. 

Spoiler for Big Little Lies S1

And speaking of pushing people from great heights, let's make a quick stop to analyze Skarsgård's character in this HBO book adaptation in which he is sent careening down a long flight of stairs to his death. Rather than playing the conflicted anti-hero, he's separating the good from the bad to create a two-faced, abusive husband. Kind family man on the outside, while being physically and verbally abusive to Nicole Kidman behind the scenes. It's a little bit like his cult leader character in The East, only now he's trying to fool the mothers of Monterey rather than his sycophantic followers. He also gets an age-appropriate, false teeth-wearing mother here in Meryl Streep, rather than Mommy Nicole from The Northman. 

Watch it on HBO Max. 

Spoilers for The Diary of a Teenage Girl 

You knew it was coming. There was no way we were making it all the way through a "he's hot, and he plays bad guys" list without featuring this particular shade of villainy. In Marielle Heller's debut, Skarsgård plays Monroe, the slimy boyfriend of Charlotte (Kristen Wiig) and/or Minnie (Bel Powley), her 15-year-old daughter, depending on where in the film you are. Based on a memoir, and set in the '70s, the film follows Minnie as she discovers who she is (in part due to her relationship with Monroe). But really, Skarsgård is trying to mark off every square on that villain bingo card. He's really just one eye patch away from the grand prize. 

Watch it on Hulu. 

Ope, I spoke too soon. He already did the eye-patch donning villain role. In Lady Gaga's music video for "Paparazzi", it is Mr. Skarsgård who has the honor of flipping Gaga off a balcony and into a bedazzled neck brace (he really has a thing for throwing people from great heights). Justice is ultimately Mother Monster's as she poisons the blonde fame monger, but Alexander is straight out of central casting for this one. 

Watch it on YouTube. 

Spoilers for Hidden

Not that there is much spoiling to be done for a 2015 movie, that had an extremely limited release and is now only available to rent, BUT I will be spoiling the twist when I say Alexander was the zombie all along. This indie-horror film was The Duffer Brothers' pre-Stranger Things production, and focuses on a family who you are led to believe are hiding from zombies post an apocalyptic event. Turns out, they are actually the zombies hiding from the humans. Sort of makes you think about the human (unhuman? post-human?) rights of zombies. Skarsgård does play an infected creature with super (post?) human strength who kills lots of soldiers though, so either way, a little problematic. Really tricky to be the good guy when you're sorta undead. 

Rent it on Prime Video. 

Spoilers for Hold the Dark

I'm gonna be honest with y'all. This is the second entry on this list that I truly have no idea how to summarize (because I have no idea what the hell is happening in this film). We have a couple living in the Alaskan wilderness, played by Skarsgård and Riley Keough. Their kid goes missing. Turns out Riley might have done it? Because she was infected by some kind of evil wolf spirit? The local wolves are eating their babies. The cops are trying to figure out what's happening, but they get mowed down sort of inexplicably by a guy with a machine gun. There's a lot of Native American spiritualism stuff floating around here that seems off, if not racist, if you ask me, but is also so convoluted that you can't really tell. Skarsgård's Vernon is just killing random people (a fellow soldier, cops, a man with antique masks). Like, not good clearly, but maybe just infected by some kind of murderous Native American wolf demon? Hard to tell. He ate some weird powder as a kid. That might be part of it? All I'm gonna say is that the whole thing feels a bit dicey, and Skarsgård, who digs up his dead kid and moves into the wolf-infested forest, does not seem to be a good egg. 

Watch it on Netflix. 

Why play just one type of bad person, when you can play every type of horrible human in one?! In this poorly-reviewed remake of a 1971 film, Skarsgård plays Charlie Venner, who rapes his ex-girlfriend, harasses her husband, tries to murder a variety of people, possibly strangles a cat, attempts to kill a disabled boy, and is in no hurry to finish his construction projects. While this film did poorly at the box office, it was one of Skarsgård's earliest English film roles and the oldest on this list. After his anti-hero hard launch in True Blood, this would have been one of the main features of his resume for quite some time, and I think the combination of those two roles lead producers to cast him primarily as a villain. You see bloodthirsty vamp and racist rapist, and it's hard to think "Oh yeah, let's cast him as Spider-Man." 

Rent it on Prime Video. 

Before we conclude today's tour, I'd like to thank you all for coming along with me on this journey through Alexander Skarsgård's filmography of wickedness, wrongdoing, and wolf spirits. 

I'd now like to leave you with the fact that when they were searching for someone to play Randall Flagg, aka The Devil, in Stephen King's universe, they cast Alexander Skarsgård. No one plays a baddie quite like him, and when you are looking for someone who is willing to decimate the entire population of the world after various rounds of torture, you hire Skarsgård. If you're going to inhabit evil dogs (which he does) or be involved with women pitched out of windows (which also happens here) then, really, Alexander Skarsgård is your only choice. 

Watch it on Paramount+.