Stellan Skarsgård tells Laura punishing new film The Paint joy he took from Chernobyl a

STELLAN Skarsgård is at home in Sweden right now, but his laugh is so warm it comes down the phone line in comforting waves that make it feel as if he is in the room with you.

It’s a laugh we haven’t heard much of on screen of late, given the serious nature of his recent projects.

He played the Soviet politician with a conscience, Boris Shcherbina, in Chernobyl (a performance that netted him a Golden Globe), he will soon be seen as the villainous Baron Vladimir Harkonnen in the upcoming sci-fi epic Dune, and he is currently starring in the unrelenting and bleak black-andwhite war film The Painted Bird.

“There is no sugar on this cake,” 69-year-old Skarsgård admits as he reflects on the threehour saga about a lone Jewish boy wandering through a cruel obstacle course of survival and abuse in Eastern Europe at the end of the Second World War.

He had been contacted by director Vaclav Marhoul 11 years ago to take part, after the filmmaker finally acquired the rights to the book by Jerzy Kosinski.

“I had read it before and I knew this was a film that was absolutely impossible to finance because who would invest in a film like that? Nobody who wants his money back, right? It’s truly a dark story about a poor child during the Second World War in Europe in black and white with almost no dialogue.

“It’s the kind of film that rarely gets made anymore, it resembles more Eastern European films from the 60s or early 70s than anything that is made for today but I really want those kind of films to be made, they are very cinematic.”

The film is filled with unimaginable horror, violence, torture and rape, although Skarsgård, who plays a German soldier who crosses paths with the boy, is keen to stress that reports of large-scale walkouts at the film’s premiere at the Venice Film Festival last year were overhyped.

“Some people said that the violence wasn’t pleasant enough in it, which I think is a horrible statement, because violence isn’t pleasant, at least not for the people who are exposed to it.

“There is not much violence, but the violence there is is realistic and cruel, even if it’s packaged in the most incredibly beautiful pictures and images.

“The film shows what the violence he is exposed to does to him and how desensitised he gets. Of course if you give your children love, they will be more likely to give love to others and vice versa, it’s the same thing with violence. If you live with violence around you, you create a culture of violence.

“It shows really the wor of humanity a how we are an how anybody c become under these circumstances We should be really careful thinking that the world consists of goo people and ba people becaus there are peop that can be good and can be bad and we are all capable of cruelty, but fortunately if you have a goo society then th doesn’t come o

It has been projects of late no real strateg navigating his included proje