LATEST NEWS:

06.12.10:

May 2011 is the target date for the Marvel Studios superhero film - THOR. The cast is as follows:

The first on-set footage was revealed last week on "Entertainment Tonight". The set visit featured mostly Chris Helmsworth and Natalie Portman chatting about non-specific details regarding the film. Director Kenneth Branagh seems intent on keeping his production super secret. The footage reveals the American southwest setting of the picture as well as a chamber that may very well be a piece of the Asgard set. You can also get glimpses of Anthony Hopkins as the one-eye Odin and a couple shots of Stellan. In theaters May 6, 2011, Thor, the arrogant Norse warrior, is forced to live among humans as punishment after reigniting an ancient war in his world. His true mettle is put to the test when a villainous foe sends dark forces from the realm of Asgard to invade Earth. The photo above of Helmsworth as Thor is the first image released.

Next month Stellan will be off to Trollhättan in Sweden to take part in Lars Von Trier's film, MELANCHOLIA. It will be the first time that Stellan and his son Alexander will play father and son on film. Stellan says he will play a guy who works in the advertising business. The proud father says he's thrilled about his son's success in Hollywood. "It's not always enough to be good to be successful. Alexander has been working very hard in Los Angeles for several years now. It's fun to see how bloody good he is!"

06.07.10:

A couple days ago the NY Post published an article on the Skarsgård family, namely to zero in on the "True Blood" fame of Alexander. I believe it was hastily written; hence, it's poor journalism with several errors and glaring omissions, such as the fact that Stellan's seventh child was born to his second wife, Melanie Everett! Shame on the NY Post!

05.18.10:

Stellan made an appearance last weekend at the Cannes Film Festival! On May 14th he attended a pre-screening party on Harle Yacht to celebrate the new film, MOOMINS AND THE COMET CHASE. The Finnish stereoscopic 3D animation film by Maria Lindberg is based on the popular characters created by Finnish writer Tove Jansson. The characters inspired various TV shows spanning more than three decades and were a huge hit all over Scandinavia and in many parts of Europe and Japan. Stellan was joined at Cannes by Helena Mattson and Mads Mikkelsen, who also provided voices for the Moomin characters. In a interview with Stellan at Cannes, he shared his reaction to the film, "Wow, finally an art movie for six-year-olds!" The film will be released domestically by FS Film on August 8. Nordisk Film will open the film with Scandinavian rights and Myndform in Iceland. The film's producer Tom Carpelan said a second Moomin film based on the Polish TV series from the 1970s will start production in the autumn. Click here for more photos from Cannes.

Every year a lot of film news comes out of the Cannes Film Festival, and one project creating some buzz is Stellan's film, FRANKIE & ALICE, starring Halle Berry as a stripper with multiple personalities. The Hollywood Reporter’s Duane Byrge saw the film in the marketplace and describes Berry's character as follows: “She switches from hard-drinking, promiscuous lady of the night to a teetotaling, racist Southern white belle, and, to boot, a genius-level kid. Not surprisingly, this lands her in a lot of trouble, personally and legally.” The film is still in search of an outlet for distribution. Here's an excerpt from Bryge's review:

Overall, "Frankie & Alice" is a well-wrought psychological drama that delves into the dark side of one woman's psyche. Berry is spellbinding as Frankie, a young L.A. exotic dancer. If stripping for a living weren't chaotic enough, Frankie is plagued by gigantic personality swings: She switches from hard-drinking, promiscuous lady of the night to a teetotaling, racist Southern white belle, and, to boot, a genius-level kid. Not surprisingly, this lands her in a lot of trouble, personally and legally.

Crammed into a public psych ward after an "episode," Frankie is left in the care of an emotionally drained psychiatrist (Stellan Skarsgard). The good doctor is a former LSD "researcher" who is still trying to plug into another reality. Down to basic prognosis, however, he's essentially a mope who medicates with tuna sandwiches, jazz and liquor. Frankie gets his professional and personal juices flowing again...

Although six scribes credited with the screenplay usually predicts erratic story and mood swings, "Frankie" does not suffer from multiple writer disorder. Both clinically and dramatically, it's an engaging titillation despite a somewhat flat last half-hour. Throughout, its exhibitionist proclivities are evened-out under director Geoffrey Sax's astute guidance and the intelligent, nuanced performances of Berry and Skarsgård. In addition, the supporting performances are rock-solid, particularly Phylicia Rashad's steadfast portrayal of Frankie's supportive but enabling mother. Scoped in a hard-noir style, with mean-streets Canada standing in for Los Angeles, "Frankie & Alice " is a technically well-balanced entertainment.

04.16.10:

It appears that the father and son team of Stellan and Alexander will be teamed up once more for Lars Von Trier's new film, MELANCHOLIA, a science-fiction disaster film. The name refers to Planet Melancholia, a huge planet hovering dangerously close to Earth and Von Trier warns us there are "no more happy endings!" Kirsten Dunst has been cast in the lead  with Charlotte Gainsbourg, Kiefer Sutherland, Charlotte Rampling and Udo Kier also attached to roles. The film will be shot July through September in Southern Sweden.  The film has a modest $7 million price tag, and will use only a moderate amount of effects. Stellan has previously worked with Von Trier on several films and has nothing but praise for the eccentric Danish director.

04.13.10:

Before Alexander Skarsgård shot to fame in HBO's "True Blood", it was much easier for me to circle in on Skarsgård news because the search engines only popped out one name "Stellan". In today's world, it's not so easy to track down the elder Swede when his son's career has skyrocketed, namely because Alexander plays this sexy vampire and female audiences across America are whispering the name "Eric...." Even my 35-year-old daughter has taken notice! When I created Stellanonline.com six years ago, Alexander had just closed down his own personal web site. Initially I included career news for him on his father's web site but thanks to his claim to fame, he has plenty of exposure on the Internet these days so there is no longer a need to post his news. The photo above shows this rising star on the cover of the May issue of Details magazine. He does indeed look hot!

And what is Stellan saying about his eldest son these days - "He's wiser, more beautiful and better than I was." Interesting... He continues, "At a certain age, my children thought it was so embarrassing that I was an actor. When Alexander was 7, he asked me, 'Why can't you be like a normal dad? Why can't you work with computers or drive a Saab?' They wanted me to be like all the other dads." And female attention is not that new to the 'True Blood' star. Stellan relates how Alexander was a preteen heartthrob - "He didn't like it at all. At the age of 12, he had girls standing outside the house. They would ask his younger brother Gustaf to let them in, and sometimes it worked."

Good news for EN GANSKE SNILL MANN (A Somewhat Gentle Man)! An American premiere is scheduled to take place in late autumn in New York and Los Angeles, and at least three other U.S. cities. The film will receive distribution in the U.S. through Strand Releasing, who will spend one million dollars on promoting the film. They are known for selecting quality films with commercial potential. The film has previously been sold to over 20 countries.

Stellan's appearance in the film is far from glamorous. The character is a thin-haired man with a ponytail and poor posture. Skarsgard says jokingly about his preparation for the role - "It's the way I really look like. It is now I do me. I worked for months to lose lots of hair. The role is very passive in the beginning, so I spent several months doing nothing. If one is working with Hans Petter, one cannot expect anything glamourous in any area."

03.22.10:

A press conference in Helsinki was held this week announcing that Stellan, his son Alexander plus Peter Stormare have signed on to voice the iconic Moomins characters in the animated family 3D feature, MOOMINS AND THE COMET CHASE. Finnish production company Oy Filmkompaniet is bringing the beloved animated creatures to the big screen in a way they have never been seen before – presenting the first Nordic stereoscopic 3D film ever produced. The real life father and son team will provide the voices of Momminpapa and son Moomintroll with Stormare lending his voice to the character Sunfkin. Stellan calls the Moomim universe a place "where dreams are looked at with love and care. And the attitude towards people and reality doesn’t have to be always so practical, but it has to be curious, friendly, and always feeling that something really good, really interesting could happen.” The film is scheduled to be released in the fall.

I've posted a recent interview in which Stellan likens himself to a castrated bull as he speculates on why he has a good reputation in the film industry - "I'm on time. That's really good! And I function socially very well on a set. Sometimes I feel like I’m brought onto the set like a…you know, when they run the bulls in Pamplona, they also have some castrated bulls to calm them down! [laughs]. Sometimes I feel like the castrated bull that is thrown in to calm down a set and create a good atmosphere! I hope that’s not why I’m hired, though. Milos Forman said that he liked me because I had no face of my own. He saw me in different roles that I’d done, but he didn’t see me as an actor bigger than my roles." How true!!

Evidently, it's no small matter that Stellan demands a good hot lunch while on location. Apparently the first time he worked in Norway, he was shocked by the Norwegian smorgasbord. He claims it was nothing but bread with a topping of brown cheese and ham, so when it came time to film EN GANSKE SNILL MANN  outside of Oslo last year, he put his foot down. During the press conference held in March 2009, producer Stein B. Kvae admitted he had promised Stellan good food!

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A great resource for checking out Stellan's movies on TV this month.