Chattanooga Times Free Press - ChattanoogaNow
Alexander Skarsgård of sound mind, body to play Tarzan
When Alexander Skarsgård was a boy in Sweden, his father, the actor Stellan, introduced him to a favorite character. And when Alexander grew up, he decided to play him.
“My dad is the biggest Tarzan fan ever, and we watched the old Johnny Weissmuller movies when I was a kid,” says Skarsgård, 39. “So I was superexcited about the idea of playing Tarzan. And I was curious: This is a story that’s been told 100 times over the past 100 years. What’s their take on it?”
“The Legend of Tarzan,” opening Friday, transports Edgar Rice Burroughs’ jungle boy, now living as Lord Greystoke in Britain, to the Congo Free State on a public relations tour sponsored by King Leopold II of Belgium. Accompanied by his wife, Jane ( Margot Robbie), and George Washington Williams (Samuel L. Jackson), a U.S. politician on a fact-finding mission, Tarzan stumbles into a trap masterminded by Capt. Léon Rom ( Christoph Waltz).
Whether critics consider this a timely critique of colonialism or another white-savior movie, Skarsgård is primarily focused on the opinion of one specific person. “My old man,” he says. “He has loved Tarzan since he was 6.”
The s e are edited excerpts from the conversation.
Q: How did you get that incredible scenery?
A:
We shot north of London in this old RollsRoyce airplane factory, ••• with real trees and African bushes, a river and waterfall, a colonial town, an African village, a quarry and a lake with a steamboat. I remember Sam and I running across a patch of grass in an industrial neighborhood, [ but in the movie], we’re running across miles and miles of savanna with a thousand wildebeest.
Q: The animals were computer- generated, but what about your abs?
A:
They’re all mine. But I didn’t want any muscle mass that didn’t serve a purpose, because animals don’t have that. So the first phase was three months of bulking up, which was 7,000 calories a day of meat and potatoes and weightlifting. I put on about 24 pounds of muscle and fat. Then we switched to a much stricter diet, six small meals a day, and I started working with the choreographer, Wayne McGregor.
Q: You don’t wear a loincloth. Are you comfortable with nudity?
A:
I’m totally comfortable if it makes sense. And for those scenes, I felt, why would he be wearing a loincloth? That kind of prudish behavior is very human. So it wouldn’t make sense for him, being raised by apes, to say, “Excuse me, guys, I actually want to cover up here.”
Q: Was the addition of Williams an attempt to update the racial i ssues in Burroughs’ stories?
A:
He was a real person, an African-American who went to the Congo and exposed what King Leopold was doing. At the time, Leopold was hailed as a philanthropist. He basically tricked the United States government and Europe into giving him the Congo because he said that he would civilize these indigenous people and build out the infrastructure. But what he actually did was genocide. And Sam’s character can sense that something is amiss.
Q: ized?
A: Is Jane modern-
Tarzan needs her as much as she needs him. A big part of his heart is still in the jungle, and she’s the only one who understands that desire to return to your roots. And it was important to find a Jane that, even though the movie takes place in the 1880s, was a modern heroine. Margot is warm and strong and tough.
Q: What did you do after you wrapped?
A:
My dad was shooting a Netflix miniseries in London. So I went straight to his house and spent four days on the couch being fed. He loves to cook, so we had rich pastas, bone marrow, mozzarella, red wine. I was in heaven.