Over the weekend, Alexander Skarsgard took the reins as host for the milestone 1000th episode of “Saturday Night Live.” The evening was made even more special with a surprise appearance that delighted fans: his father, the acclaimed actor Stellan Skarsgard.
Stellan, fresh from receiving a Best Actor Oscar nomination for his role in Joachim Trier’s critically praised film “Sentimental Value,” joined his son in two memorable skits. The father-son duo, who share a close-knit relationship, have previously graced the screen together, notably in the 1984 Swedish film “Ake and His World,” when Alexander was just eight years old.
Their latest collaboration on SNL showcased their chemistry once more, through a sketch that humorously parodied the distinctive style of Scandinavian cinema. In the skit, Alexander and fellow cast member Sarah Sherman portrayed Nordic actors who couldn’t help but break into laughter, repeatedly botching their scenes in what was meant to be a serious family drama.
The plot revolves around a brother and sister preparing to bid farewell to their ailing father, whose character, in a comedic twist, is portrayed by Stellan. The scene unfolds in a bathroom, setting the stage for the poignant yet playful moment when they confront their father’s mortality.
Alexander and Sarah Sherman play Nordic actors who keep bursting into laughter and ruining their takes as they struggle through the shoot of what was supposed to be a brooding family drama about a brother and sister whose old father is about to die.
When they finally go into the bathroom to see their father in the tub and bid him goodbye before his expiry, he turns out to be played by Stellan.
Alexander Skarsgard hosted the 1000th episode of Saturday Night Live and starred in a sketch with his Oscar-nominated father Stellan and Sarah Sherman
They were reunited in another sketch in which three fathers of different backgrounds star on a talk show in order to discuss their varying approaches to parenting
A running gag in the sketch is that Alexander and Sarah’s characters in the make-believe movie suspect their father of having drowned their mother in a fjord.
But in his last moments, the Stellan character reveals to his children that in fact their mother killed herself because ‘she just didn’t like you.’
He then asks his son to hold his hand as he drowns himself in the bath – but when he raises his hand from the water to clasp Alexander’s, he ruins the take by revealing he is wearing a green boxing glove and yelling: ‘PRANK!’
They were reunited in another sketch in which three fathers of different backgrounds star on a talk show in order to discuss their varying approaches to parenting.
Alexander plays a bleak unsmiling Finn, with Marcello Hernandez as a jovial Latino and Mikey Day as a softhearted white American.
When asked what he would do if he caught his son smoking marijuana, Alexander’s character Heikki says grimly: ‘I’d kneel down, look into his soul and say: “The shame is yours to live with,”‘ to which Marcello’s Joaquin jokes: ‘I don’t talk, buddy, I shoot!’
The men then discuss the ability of their own fathers to show affection to them, prompting a personal story from Heikki: ‘One time, me and my father were sitting in a sauna and our kneecaps accidentally touched, and he said: “Tell no one of this.”‘
At that point Stellan storms onto the set, wearing a sweater bizarrely pulled up to expose his paunch, and thunders: ‘I told you, tell no one of this!’
Skarsgard is pictured during his opening monologue, which afforded him the opportunity to mingle with the band and demonstrate his own abilities on the saxophone
The Swedish father-son duo first featured in a sketch that was, fittingly enough, a tribute to the Scandinavian cinema that acted as both of their launchpads to international fame
Alexander, Sherman and Stellan play Nordic actors who keep bursting into laughter and ruining takes as they struggle through the shoot of what was supposed to be a brooding family drama
‘Forgive me, father!’ says a distraught Heikki, to which his father offers the callback: ‘The shame is yours! Live with it!’ before stalking back off the set.
Stellan and Alexander have acted in a number of the same movies, including the 2009 Swedish film Kill Your Darlings and the 2011 Lars von Trier picture Melancholia, an international co-production starring Kirsten Dunst and Charlotte Gainsbourg.
Over the past few months, as Stellan plugs Sentimental Value, Alexander has been strenuously promoting his steamy gay BDSM movie Pillion.
Their paths crossed last year as they supported their respective projects at the Telluride Film Festival, leading to a warm bonding experience for the pair.
‘Usually, you dip in for 48 hours and it’s press junkets and screenings and then you’re out. But this was lovely, because all we had to do was one Q & A each. So we had time to hang out, get drunk together, be hungover together, see each other’s movies,’ said Alexander while speaking to Stellan for Variety‘s Actors on Actors.
‘Watching Sentimental Value with you next to me was something I’ll never forget. Because knowing what you went through in the years leading up to it.…,’ he added, in reference to the stroke Stellan suffered in 2022 that endangered his career by throwing a wrench in his ability to remember his lines.
‘It was a 9am screening, so I was a little hungover, very fragile and emotionally open,’ noted Alexander, who is one of Stellan’s eight children.
Meanwhile Alexander has revealed his father ‘really enjoyed’ watching his raunchy new sadomasochistic gay biker movie, which ‘meant a lot to me.’
He recalled: ‘It was a beautiful day to watch it. I was in the theater and to sit next to Dad and watch him watch this thing was special, and the fact that he really responded to it meant a lot to me,’ via On Demand Entertainment.
