SWORD OF DESTINY
When Alexander Skarsgård was a child, his family used to spend their summers on the idyllic Baltic island of Öland. Sweden’s second largest island is coincidentally home to their royal family’s summer residence. In a manner, the Skarsgårds form a dynasty of their own, with patriarch Stellan one of the most recognisable Swedish actors of all time, and four of his eight children – Alexander, Gustaf, Bill and Valter – also pursuing careers in film and television. In fact, it was a friend of his father who gave Alexander his first acting role at the tender age of seven, in Åke and His World (he played Kalle Nubb, the eponymous Åke’s best friend). But during his childhood holidays on Öland, he was more interested in the runestones that littered the island’s landscape.
“I remember looking at those runestones, and the inscriptions were telling tales of Viking expeditions down to Constantinople, and it just fascinated me tremendously,” he recalls down the line from Stockholm, where he’s spending time with his family before embarking on the press tour for . “Since then I nurtured this is the product of that whim, but it wasn’t the most straightforward path for Skarsgård to realise his simple childhood dream.
