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Aug 25, 2016 By Stephen Mayne Web Exclusive

At the age of 65, Swedish actor Stellan Skarsgård has just about done it all by now. In a career stretching back nearly five decades he’s appeared in everything from Hollywood blockbusters to acclaimed foreign language films and award winning TV series’. He’s perhaps best known to American audiences for his role as Dr. Erik Selvig in four Marvel films and Bootstrap Bill in two Pirates of the Caribbean films, not to mention roles in the likes of Good Will Hunting and The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo. He also has something of an acting dynasty going with several children entering the business. The best known, Alexande,r having starred in True Blood, Generation Kill and recently as Tarzan.

Throughout his career, Stellan has returned to work with the same directors on multiple occasions. Six times he’s teamed up with Lars von Trier, and now four times with Norwegian director Hans Petter Moland. Their recent effort, In Order of Disappearance, premiered back in 2014 at the Berlin Film Festival, receiving a warm response.

Stellan plays Nils, a placid Swedish snowplow operator in Norway who has his life turned upside down when his son is killed by a local gang. It launches him into a bloody revenge mission as he sets out to punish those responsible, inadvertently provoking a gang war in the process.

Ahead of the film’s release on 26^th August, he spoke to us about addressing topical issues, box office success, and his prodigious output.

Stephen Mayne [Under the Radar]: You’ve worked with Hans four times over the past 20 years. What is it about the relationship that makes you want to keep collaborating?

Stellan Skarsgård: First of all I think he’s a terrific director, a great director, and we became very good friends. The first time we worked together was in harsh conditions in the artic on Zero Kelvin. It’s not only that he provides me with really great roles but the way we work together now is smooth, the communication is shorthand and we trust each other. I know what he’s good at; I know what his weaknesses are and vice versa. It becomes playful and easy to work together. We encourage each other to take risks. That’s fun.

When he’s putting a project together does he come to you with a role or do you input earlier?

It can be both. When he came to me after A Somewhat Gentle Man with this script I wasn’t sure. I couldn’t see what kind of film it was; it was such a mixture of genres and different tones. I was worried but he said trust me so I trusted him.

Your character Nils is involved in a lot of action and violence. How was that to play?

It’s no different between playing a dentist and a killer. You do your job. All you have to do as an actor is basically do the moves. This character has very little investment in his killings. It comes from an emotional side of him, the caveman he didn’t know existed.

How would you describe Nils before the death of his son sends him on a killing spree?

I think he was definitely at ease with life. I don’t think his ambitions were higher than what he had. He has a wife that he liked and it was comfortable. He felt he was important in his society and he would never break any laws. He was a good man and he thought he did everything right. But when this catastrophe happens it turns out he doesn’t have the language or the means to handle the situation; he can’t even talk to his wife. That is something that probably had been latent in the relationship but the crisis made it so obvious she left him. First he tried to take his life but then the caveman in him comes up and he becomes a serial murderer.

To what extent is he just acting on instinct then? He seems very methodical in his approach.

He’s not very much in control. He acts on instinct and he fails. He creates chaos he’s not aware of because he starts this war between two different groups of gangsters. Most of the killings the gangsters do themselves. I don’t think he’s pleased with how it goes. He ends up with nothing and a lot of dead people around.

Lying beneath Nils’ life is this darker world of organized crime. Can we read anything into this in terms of Scandinavian society?

It’s a satire to a certain extent on the innocence of a Scandinavian society confronted by a criminality they’re not prepared for but it’s not a true image of Scandinavian society. I was surprised when I did the press for The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo at how many people thought those books and films actually show what it’s like living in Sweden which is a very peaceful place.

Immigration comes up in the film. The Norwegian gang is very disparaging of their eastern European rivals while Nils is described as the perfect immigrant.

Referring to Nils as an immigrant who has managed to adapt to Norwegian society is a joke because there’s basically no difference between Norwegian and Swedish society. It’s like complementing someone from Connecticut for being able to adapt to New Jersey.

When we made the film just a couple of years ago it was before the big wave of refugees from the Middle East and the following anti-immigrant sentiment that has exploded. We might have had a different tone on those issues. It’s really sad what’s happening in Europe in countries like Hungary and Poland. In almost every country you see disenfranchised people in fear of immigrants. It’s the lie they’ve been told. In America Trump has disenfranchised people living in fear of Mexicans for example.

Does this change the way the film is viewed and discussed now?

If you talk about the politics we make fun of when it comes to immigration, it’s a different situation now but on almost all films you start doing press a year and a half to two years after you make them and things happen. On this film it was actually released two years ago. I don’t feel the questions I get now are that different or the discussions with people who have watched the film have changed but the world is changing and it’s changing for the worst rapidly.

Do you get different responses from different national audiences?

That varies from film to film. I remember one of my first films, The Simple-Minded Murderer, which when I saw it in Denmark everybody laughed, and when I saw it in Israel nobody laughed. But this film I think has an international kind of humor and is also full of different kinds of humor: high-brow, low-brow, slapstick – and it’s a rather simple story. The reactions are pretty much the same all over the world.

What do you look for in a project given you’ve worked across genres and formats, and appeared in blockbusters and independent films?

I want to work with people who are good human beings, nice people and stimulating. I also want to work with material that has the potential to become a film I haven’t seen before. Of course that goes more for the independent films than the blockbusters because they are more formulaic. But I have a lot of fun when I do a Marvel film and I work with great directors like Kenneth Branagh or Joss Whedon. I’m having fun doing those.

What’s the relationship between bigger Hollywood films and smaller independent films for you?

If you look at how the films I’ve been in have done at the box office, I’m number 13 in the world. Bankers look at that and even if it’s not thanks to me that the Marvel films have done well, it’s much easier to get small independent films financed if I’m in it. That’s one benefit. But I also need a varied diet. When I’ve been working on a low-budget independent film with difficult dark material for months, it’s nice to do a big film.

You certainly have a prodigious output. Do you ever feel like you want to take a break?

I think I have a really good balance. I’ve made over 100 films but I get to be home with the kids feeding them and changing diapers about six months of the year. I don’t feel like I’m over-worked.

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In Order of Disappearance opens in theaters and on demand on August 26th.