Stellan Skarsgård should be declared an international film and TV treasure. He’s won two Golden Globes, two European Film Awards and a Primetime Emmy Award and has finally been nominated for an Academy Award.
His IMDB page lists over 150 credits and that doesn’t even include his work onstage, primarily with the Royal Dramatic Theatre in Stockholm from 1972 to 1988.
His film work includes some of the most eclectic and diverse roles in indies as well as blockbusters, in three different languages (English, Swedish and Svorsk—his mix of Swedish and Norwegian). Skarsgård appeared in mostly in Swedish-language films in the 1970s through the 1990s, like the Oscar nominated The Ox (1991), but had supporting roles in The Unbearable Lightness of Being (1988) and The Hunt for Red October (1989).
His English-speaking breakout role was Jan Nyman in Lars von Trier’s masterpiece, Breaking the Waves (1996), opposite Emily Watson. He went on to appear in five more projects for the iconoclast director, Dancer in the Dark (2000), Dogville (2003), Melancholia (2011), Nymphomaniac (2013) and The Kingdom II (1997) for Danish TV.
Notable film credits include, Good Will Hunting (1997), Amistad (1997), City of Ghosts (2002), Kill Your Darlings (2006), Goya’s Ghosts (2006), Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest (2006) & At Worlds End (2007), Mamma Mia! (2009), The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo (2011), Thor (2011), The Avengers (2012), Mamma Mia! Here We Go Again (2018), Dune (2021) and Dune: Part Two (2024), to name but a few.
His television output is highlighted by Helen of Troy (2003), HBO’s Chernobyl (2019) and the popular Disney series, Andor (2022-25).
In his latest, and arguably, greatest film role, he plays Gustav Borg, in Joachim Trier’s Sentimental Value, a deeply flawed father and film director who is trying to balance his artistic life and familial responsibilities — and mostly failing at the latter.
It’s terrifically dense work with beguiling performances that mine the psychological complexities of the actor’s respective character.
Gustav has two estranged daughters (one moreso than the other), Nora (Renate Reinsve) and Agnes (Inga Ibsdotter Lilleaas), who have reunited to mourn the death of their mother. Gustav arrives at the home they were brought up (basically another character in the film) and all three are confronted with past trauma and unspoken resentment.
Once a revered film auteur, Gustav has been unable to get a project financed in over a decade but has written a new script and wants Nora, a celebrated stage actress who had a successful TV series, to play the lead. She refuses to even read the script.
Agnes once starred in one of her father’s acclaimed films, and Gustav wants her son, Erik (Øyvind Hesjedal Loven) for a key role in his new project. She is apprehensive, to say the least.
While attending a retrospect of a WW2-themed film he made decades ago (starring Agnes), Gustav encounters Hollywood star Rachel Kemp (Elle Fanning), who is completely taken with his work and agrees to play the role in his movie, which Gustav will rewrite as an American story.
The rest of the sublime film follows these characters on their sometimes emotionally torturous journeys.
Sentimental Value recently received nine Academy Award nominations: Best Picture, Director, Original Screenplay (Trier & Vogt), Editing (Olivier Bugge Coutté), International Feature as well as four acting nominations for Reinsve, Lilleaas, Fanning and Skarsgård. It is the most nominations ever for a Nordic film and the most acting nominations for a 2025 film.
The film won the Grand Prix at last year’s Cannes Film Festival and garnered seven Golden Globe nominations, winning for Supporting Actor (Skarsgård) as well as sweeping the European Film Awards with 6 wins: Best European Film, Director, Screenwriter, Actor (Skarsgård), Actress (Reinsve) and Original Score. It also picked up eight BAFTA nominations including Best Film, Director and another nomination for Skarsgård.
Neon released Sentimental Value in theaters in November. It is currently available on VOD on many platforms including Apple TV and Prime.
And Criterion just announced the film’s May release on 4K-UHD, Blu-ray and DVD.
The Contending had the honor of a video chat with this acting titan.
