LOS ANGELES.- Swedish actor Alexander Skarsgard could hardly wait to transform into the wicker husband of “Wicker” who stirs up a village (and social media).
But when the time came, the first thing he felt was “panic and claustrophobia,” said Skarsgard, who stars alongside Olivia Colman in the comedy drama that hits theaters this weekend.
The suit “was heavy and hot, and stuck to my face. I couldn’t take it off all day, to have lunch or to breathe a little,” the actor commented in an interview with AFP.
“Wicker”, inspired by the short story “The Wicker Husband” by Ursula Wills-Jones, takes place in a medieval period, in a patriarchal village in which all its inhabitants are called by their profession.
For the fisherwoman (Colman), it is a hostile place that punishes her for being independent, for not having a man by her side and for smelling like fish.
Defiantly, the woman asks the basket maker (Peter Dinklage) to make her a wicker husband. A month later, like a crisp apparition, the tall, burly, intricately woven groom materializes.
Their performance at home (and in bed) becomes the talk of the town: with husbands who resent the example they cannot follow, and wives who envy what they lack.
“It’s fun to see the wicker husband, the fisherwoman and this crazy village,” said Eleanor Wilson, who directed the film with Alex Huston Fischer, her partner.
“But underneath that, a lot of things happen that we identify with (…) but if you did it in modern times it would seem very didactic.”
The fable, Huston Fischer added, was the ideal vehicle for the story since “it’s easy to put a magnifying glass on something when it’s disguised in a certain way.”
“With a kind of format like this (…) you can see it more clearly.”
“Fun”
Wilson commented that they “fell in love” with the story as soon as they read it.
“It explores how envy can corrupt love and how we all, in some way, see ourselves in relationship to others,” he said.
In addition, they were encouraged by the cinematic challenge that inspired them to develop “a kind of visual feast” made by hand, Huston Fischer said.
“We wanted to see what the wicker husband could look like!”
This fell into the hands of the New Zealand studio Weta Workshop (“The Lord of the Rings” and “Avatar”).
The detailed weaves on the face articulate with the features of Skarsgard, who found it “challenging” to convey his character’s emotions under that skin.
“I had to exaggerate my expressions (…) the mask was attached to my face, which meant that any subtlety would be lost,” he said earlier in a press conference.
The rehearsals made him feel like “a clown”, but Colman applauded the result.
“He’s incredibly humble,” she said. “Because to achieve that, the love and the nuances and the humor through a basket (…) is basically incredible.”
Colman and Skarsgard explained that filming began with the passionate scenes that reveal the village, and that they went viral on the internet to the point of leading Ikea to promote their rattan products as: “made with husband material.”
“There’s passion, intensity, but also a lot of humor and warmth and fun in those scenes,” Skarsgard said.
