Bill Skarsgård is best known for his horror roles: as two very different vampires in Hemlock Grove and Nosferatu, as a confused houseguest in Barbarian, and, of course, as Pennywise the Dancing Clown in It, its sequel, and its spin-off series — but that isn’t where his talent for undeniable intensity ends. He’s also played superheroes in Deadpool 2 and The Crow remake, done battle with Keanu Reeves as the Marquis Vincent Bisset de Gramont in John Wick: Chapter 4, and dragged Hugh Jackman’s titular aged hero back into the fray in The Death of Robin Hood. Skarsgård, who’s recently been cast to lead Hideo Kojima’s upcoming Xbox game Physint, will also soon star in Peter Berg’s The Mosquito Bowl, premiering in select theaters Oct. 30 and on Netflix Nov. 25. Also starring Nicholas Galitzine, Ray Nicholson, and Tom Francis, the film follows America’s top college football players who enlist in the Marines and join World War II after the attack on Pearl Harbor.
In the movies and series below on Netflix, Skarsgård adds several roles to the list that further up the stakes: a troubled young prisoner in the Stephen King universe, a famously charming Swedish criminal, a war veteran struggling to be a good father, and a shotgun-wielding revenge seeker. Read on to learn more.
This two-season horror anthology series, executive produced by J.J. Abrams (The Cloverfield Paradox), follows residents of the fictional, eponymous Maine town who are both inspired by, and taken directly from, Stephen King’s substantial catalog. They include an aspiring writer with the surname Torrance (Jane Levy), a man incarcerated at Shawshank State Prison (Skarsgård), a covert telepath (Melanie Lynskey), and a nurse struggling with her demons (Lizzy Caplan). Season 1 begins with criminal attorney Henry Deaver (André Holland) returning to his hometown, only to find that past events surrounding the nearby prison have come back to haunt him.
Skarsgård is front and center in this six-episode Swedish series about the real-life career criminal Clark Olofsson. Known for his good looks and charisma, Olofsson was beloved by the Swedish public in the 1970s despite being convicted of robbery, drug trafficking, jailbreaks, and attempted murder. In fact, he was so well liked that he inspired the term “Stockholm syndrome” (the psychological phenomenon in which an abductee develops a bond with their captor) when he endeared himself to his hostages in the 1973 Norrmalmstorg bank robbery. Clark examines Olofsson’s life, crimes, and the public’s adoration of him.
Director Gus Van Sant’s crime thriller is inspired by true events and stars Skarsgård as Tony Kiritsis, who, on Feb. 8, 1977, enters the Meridian Mortgage Company offices in Indianapolis. Tony believes that broker M.L. Hall (Al Pacino) cheated him out of potential profits. When he can’t find Hall, Tony holds his son Richard (Dacre Montgomery) hostage instead and demands payment. Wielding a sawed-off shotgun and wearing a “dead man’s wire” that connects the gun’s trigger to his own neck, Tony enters a tense, multi-day standoff with authorities, including Detective Michael Grable (Cary Elwes) and the FBI.
Tom Holland leads this Southern Gothic psychological thriller from director Antonio Campos about the residents of two small towns whose stories interweave over the course of the mid 20th century. Skarsgård plays former U.S. Marine Willard Russell, who returns to his hometown in West Virginia after World War II. Haunted by his time overseas, he passes his trauma to his son, Arvin (Holland), who carries the burden through showdowns with a preacher (Robert Pattinson), a police officer (Sebastian Stan), and a pair of serial killers (Jason Clarke and Riley Keough).
