Stellan Skarsgård - Pop Culture Icon
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Stellan Skarsgård has had a long and distinguished acting career spanning over fifty years. He was born in 1951 in Sweden. He began his acting career at age 21 on Swedish television and on stage. His roles have ranged from drama and tragedy to comedy and musicals.
Skarsgård has done a fantastic job in all of them. He has a notable connection with Danish filmmaker Lars von Trier having appeared in six of his movies. Although the thing that has made him a pop culture icon in America is his impeccable geek credentials.
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Skarsgård’s IMDb page shows 152 credits. In 2022 alone, he has appeared in Disney+’s Star Wars series Andor and the Marvel Cinematic Universe’s Thor: Love and Thunder. In Andor, he plays Luthen Rael, one of the leaders of the burgeoning rebel alliance. In Love and Thunder, he plays Erik Selvig a recurring character throughout the Thor movies and in two of the Avengers movies. Those two things put him almost at a Sam Jackson level of cool IMDb pages. But it goes much further than that.
One of Skarsgård’s earliest English language roles was in 1990’s The Hunt for Red October as Captain Tupolev. In 1997, he was in Good Will Hunting as Professor Lambeau. In 1999, he played Jim Whitlock in Deep Blue Sea (with Samuel L. Jackson).
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He joined Johnny Depp in 2006 in the Pirates of the Carribean franchise as Bootstrap Bill, appearing in both Dead Man’s Chest and At World’s End. In 2008, he starred in Mama Mia! as Bill, one of the three father candidates. His first turn in the MCU came in 2011 with Thor. In 2015, Skarsgård was in Disney’s live action remake of Cinderella. He played himself on The Simpsons in 2020 and in 2021 was Baron Vladimir Harkonnen in Denis Villeneuve’s epic Dune.
That’s one heck of a resume. Stellan Skarsgård should be considered among the pantheon of Geek Gods. The world is lucky to have him.
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