Alexander Skarsgård is homesick.
The transplanted Scandinavian heartthrob, best known as Eric, True Blood’s sexiest vampire, lives in Los Angeles, but pines for his childhood home.
“I miss my family,” the 6’4 actor says. “They’re all in Stockholm. My parents are divorced but they both live in Stockholm. I have six siblings and they all live in Stockholm. Huge extended family… we’re all very close. So it is tough being that far away.”
Life in his new home has been an adjustment. “It’s been difficult,” he says. “I’ve been there on and off for seven years now. I like California. I like Californians. The weather is great, however, I do miss the seasons. When you’ve been there for a while you realize they do have seasons in California, but the changes aren’t as dramatic as they are in Scandinavia.
“In Sweden you really feel how it changes, and there’s something about that I love. In a weird way you feel how time is moving forward. Sometimes in California I wake up and I don’t know if it is February or June. In Sweden it is so brutal; nature, how it dies and then the rebirth. That kind of cycle. I do miss it. But the grass is always greener because when I’m in Sweden for a winter and it is five months of darkness I’m like, ‘Oh man! Where’s the sun? I wish I was in California.’ So I’m always complaining I guess.”
Weather aside, he doesn’t have that much to complain about these days. True Blood continues to take a bit out of the ratings and his new film, Lars von Trier’s Melancholia — he plays Kirsten Dunst’s husband in this dark end-of-the-world drama — won an award at Cannes. But more than that, shooting the film reunited him with his much-missed family.
“Lars shoots all his movies in Sweden,” says Skarsgård. That meant he got to see his family —“On weekends I had rental cars and I drove up to Stockholm to see my mom and siblings.”— and work with “one of my best friends”— his father, the celebrated Swedish actor Stellan Skarsgård.
“I’m at an age now where we’re buddies,” says the thirty-five-year-old Skarsgård. “I have a great deal of respect for him as a human being and as an actor so it was just lovely.”
