Extreme transformations clearly run in the Skarsgård family. Stellan Skarsgård famously spent hours each morning being covered in barnacles to play Bootstrap Bill Turner in the Pirates of the Caribbean franchise. Now it sounds like his son, Alexander Skarsgård, has taken that legacy somewhere even stranger, with a new role that required him to be fully sealed inside prosthetics.
The former True Bloodstar (available to stream with an HBO Max subscription) recently opened up about the experience in an interview with Variety, as part of a wide-ranging profile. Among the films discussed was the upcoming Wicker, in which he plays a mysterious creature made of grasses and reeds who forms an unlikely bond with a lonely character played by Olivia Colman. The role didn’t just require emotional commitment but physical endurance, he explained:
[The wicker] was glued to my face, and then they glued the eyelids and the lips — my eyes dried up, and I couldn’t eat or drink, and I couldn’t sweat.
This means for long stretches of shooting, Skarsgård was essentially trapped inside the character, forced to communicate through exaggerated movement and presence rather than subtle expression. It’s the kind of constraint that turns even simple scenes into a test of stamina.
Naturally, the comparison to his father came up. Stellan’s transformation for Pirates of the Caribbean is legendary, with individual barnacles glued on one by one during marathon makeup sessions. But the Northman actor, who is not above smack talking his Pops, was quick to point out that the two experiences were demanding in very different ways, saying:
It wasn’t like when Dad did Pirates of the Caribbean, and they had to glue on each barnacle. He spent seven or eight hours in the chair in the morning. On this, they got it down to just over an hour.
Getting the makeup down to a one hour application process is pretty impressive. But, shorter prep time didn’t mean an easier day, though. Once the Murderbot performer was sealed in, there was no quick break or adjustment. The trade-off was efficiency for intensity. After shooting for two weeks, he was reportedly given a full week off just to let his skin recover from the glue.
The restrictions also forced him to rethink his performance. With his face immobilized, the Legend of Tarzan lead couldn’t rely on the micro-expressions he’s known for. Instead, he had to go bigger, exaggerating movement and energy to stay readable on screen, especially opposite an actor as subtle as Colman.
That willingness to embrace discomfort fits neatly into Skarsgård’s recent career choices. From playing a chilling tech mogul on Succession to pushing boundaries in films like Infinity Pool and Pillion, he’s consistently chosen roles that challenge traditional leading-man expectations. Vanity has never seemed to be the point.
The family throughline is hard to ignore. Between Stellan’s barnacle-covered Bootstrap Bill, Bill’s transformative turns as Pennywise and Count Orlok, and now Alexander’s wicker-bound role, extreme makeup has become a Skarsgård tradition. In each case, the transformation isn’t about spectacle, but about fully disappearing into the character. Alexander does exactly that here, even if his version comes with a more claustrophobic twist.
Audiences won’t fully appreciate the extent of the transformation until Wicker arrives on the 2026 movie schedule.Wicker is set for its world premiere at the 2026 Sundance Film Festival on January 24, 2026, in the USA, with wider theatrical release dates expected later in the year.
