Skarsgård is hardly the only person forced to stretch their acting muscles for Wicker. “The Wicker Husband” has already been turned into a musical with music and lyrics by Darren Clark and a book by Rhys Jennings. The stage production has been mounted across the U.S. and the UK, often with impressive effects to bring the titular spouse to life.
That aspect isn’t what worries Skarsgård. The actor has certainly been part of big productions in the past, even beyond the false fangs and fake blood he used in True Blood. In addition to acting besides CGI creations of the King of the Monsters and the Eighth Wonder of the World for 2021’s Godzilla vs. Kong, Skarsgård was in lavish productions such as Brandon Cronenberg’s stomach-churning Infinity Pool and Robert Eggers’ Viking epic The Northman. More recently, Skarsgård got a warm-up for Wicker by portraying a different inanimate object that gains sentience. On the Apple TV series Murderbot, Skarsgård portrays the titular android, who begins to develop a sense of self that puts him in conflict with the creators who designed him as a security apparatus.
Based on his comments at Sundance, the Wicker Husband may have a similar personal journey as Murderbot, but starts in a very different place than someone called, well, Murderbot. Wicker appealed to him because “it wasn’t heavy-handed or didactic or preachy. It was so funny and sweet and obviously a very interesting character to play,” he revealed. “It was a stretch, as an actor,” he added.
Those last words, Skarsgård delivered with a big smile, proving that his practice playing the Wicker Husband is paying off already. And indeed, it will be an interesting departure from a blood-soaked Viking (The Northman), a vain author full of self-delusion (Infinity Pool), or a BDSM dom (Pillion).
Wicker premiered Jan. 24, 2026, at the Sundance Film Festival.
