Renate Reinsve nearly became a carpenter. Now she’s Oscar-bound<\/a><\/span><\/p>\nWhy the ‘Sentimental Value’ star turned to more ‘lighthearted’ movies<\/h2>\n
Skarsg\u00e5rd was born in Gothenburg, Sweden, as the oldest of five siblings. His parents laid a foundation built on respect and equality: \u201cI knew I was smarter than some kids and stupider than others,\u201d he recalls with a chuckle. \u201cBut that didn\u2019t affect the value of me as a human being.\u201d<\/p>\n
His father, in particular, fostered an early interest in civil rights and politics, and Skarsg\u00e5rd aspired to one day be a Swedish diplomat in the vein of Dag Hammarskj\u00f6ld.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen I grew up, I realized that most diplomats don\u2019t have a voice of their own,\u201d Skarsg\u00e5rd says. \u201cThey’re megaphones for their government, and they’re also contributing to a lot of mess in the world.\u201d Regardless, \u201cdiplomacy is still much better than aggression,\u201d and the actor finds it \u201cessential\u201d to speak up about social injustice.<\/p>\n
“You can’t ignore the world,” he says. “The threats to democracy, the widening gap between the rich and poor \u2012 it’s a lot to think about.”<\/p>\n
Skarsg\u00e5rd stumbled into acting as a teenager, and primarily worked with European directors including Bo Widerberg and Lars von Trier until his Hollywood breakthrough in 1997\u2019s \u201cGood Will Hunting.\u201d<\/p>\n
But it was a 1990 Holocaust drama, \u201cGood Evening, Mr. Wallenberg,\u201d that changed how Skarsg\u00e5rd approached his career. The horrifying subject matter was \u201cunbearable,\u201d and he felt enormous responsibility to honor the people who lived through it.<\/p>\n
\u201cI didn\u2019t sleep at night; I had a personal crisis,\u201d Skarsg\u00e5rd recalls. \u201cAfter that film, everything felt worthless to me. But after a while, I became more lighthearted in my choices.\u201d<\/p>\n
He eventually stepped into the Marvel and \u201cStar Wars” franchises, and even belted out ABBA tunes in the \u201cMamma Mia!\u201d movies. He likes playing the villain, as he’s done in \u201cDune\u201d and \u201cThe Girl with the Dragon Tattoo.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cIt’s fun to make them more complicated than they are, and to give the audience a feeling of danger,\u201d Skarsg\u00e5rd says. Through the years, \u201cI realized that not everything is so damn important, and you can also get too pretentious. \u2018Mamma Mia!\u2019 is not worth any less \u2013 it\u2019s just entertainment.\u201d<\/p>\n
After a stroke, Skarsg\u00e5rd is grateful for his ‘rich and wonderful’ life<\/h2>\n
In 2022, Skarsg\u00e5rd suffered a stroke that impacted his short-term memory. As a result, he was prompted dialogue through an earpiece while making “Sentimental Value.”<\/p>\n
“I can’t remember lines, which is a pity, of course,” he says. “The rhythm of a scene is very important to me: how you talk and what pauses you make.” Now, “it’s very complicated.”<\/p>\n
The “Chernobyl” star is ready for “some time to detox” after the rigors of awards season, but he is also eager for another “juicy” part like Gustav.<\/p>\n
“I don’t think I have more than a certain amount of time left to do what I want,” Skarsg\u00e5rd says ruefully. “I’ve become a little greedier, in that sense. On the other hand, I’m 74 years old, and there are not many roles out there.”<\/p>\n
The actor turns 75 this summer, but he has no plans for a blowout bash of any sort.<\/p>\n
“What are you going to do: celebrate that you’re closer to death?” Skarsg\u00e5rd says. It’s a milestone year, sure, but “it’s just numbers and numbers are an invention.” More than anything, “I hope that I won’t lose my faculties too long before I die. That’s my only fear. I’ve lost some already, but I can handle those.”<\/p>\n
He says he “can’t live” without books, “but I’m having trouble reading because of the stroke. I lose my train of thought; I can’t have political discussions; I’m not that funny anymore.<\/p>\n
\u201cBut I’m not sad about it,\u201d Skarsg\u00e5rd adds with a smile. \u201cI feel that my life has been so rich and wonderful: eight good kids, two good wives, and an enormous amount of fun.<\/p>\n
“When I was 50, I thought, ‘I might as well die now. I still would have had a better life than most people.\u2019 So it’s not unfair.”<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
\u2018 The preceding article may include information circulated by third parties \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n \u2018 Some details of this article were extracted from the following source www.usatoday.com \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Renate Reinsve, Stellan Skarsg\u00e5rd can’t connect in ‘Sentimental Value’ Renate Reinsve and Elle Fanning star in Norway’s Oscar hopeful “Sentimental Value,” from “The Worst Person in the World” filmmaker Joachim Trier. NEW YORK \u2014 Last May, Stellan Skarsg\u00e5rd premiered his aching family drama \u201cSentimental Value\u201d at France\u2019s Cannes Film Festival. Since then, it’s been roughly […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2301173,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[25173],"tags":[425358,344472,39915,22220,25060,21751,239390,344542,345533,6297,21741,21799,373031,21993,391654,35539,387660,24311,239392,22270,21739,298114,22020,241909,21912,211924,21738,239343,239453,147314,437833,414104,345851,24316,21913,239344],"class_list":["post-2301170","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-artists","tag-academy","tag-academy-awards","tag-affiliate","tag-arts","tag-awards","tag-celebrities","tag-celebrities-u0026-entertainment-news","tag-drama","tag-drama-films","tag-eamotion","tag-entertainment","tag-film","tag-film-u0026-tv-industry","tag-films","tag-globe","tag-golden","tag-golden-globe-awards","tag-gossip","tag-gossip-u0026-tabloid-news","tag-industry","tag-local","tag-local-affiliate-arts-u0026-entertainment","tag-movie","tag-movie-reference","tag-movies","tag-neutral","tag-news","tag-overall","tag-overall-neutral","tag-reference","tag-skarsgard","tag-stellan","tag-stellan-skarsgard","tag-tabloid","tag-tv","tag-u0026"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/Stellan-Skarsgard-opens-up-about-children-death-and-Oscar-movie-scaled.webp","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2301170","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2301170"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2301170\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2301174,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2301170\/revisions\/2301174"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2301173"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2301170"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2301170"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2301170"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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