When he's not busy playing the scheming-yet-smoldering vampire Eric Northman on "True Blood," Swedish heartthrob Alexander Skarsgard is sinking his teeth into other projects that are not quite as mystical as his HBO series, but are just as perplexing. Take for example, "Metropia" — the statuesque actor (believe me — he is tall!) lent his voice to this grim animated tale, and when we caught up with him this past weekend at the Tribeca Film Festival, we were eager to find out what drew him to the part.
"Tarik [Saleh, the director] is an old friend of mine, he told me about the idea way before there was a script," Alex recalled to Hollywood Crush. "I was just fascinated. It's a very interesting story. It's kind of a dark, bleak dystopian story."
To further explain the complicated plot of "Metropia," it takes place in 2024 (just 14 years away, folks!) and follows an Everyman named Roger (voiced by Vincent Gallo) who thinks he hears a weird "voice in his head" as he navigates Europe's massive underground Metro system, thus getting involved in a dark corporate conspiracy.
That voice Roger thinks he hears is actually Alex's character, Stefan, who literally is in Roger's head, controlling and monitoring his every thought from a headset at a desk. Stefan, Alex explains, "works for The Man. He's just caught in the system, just trying to survive."
See? Complicated right? "It's fiction, but our society is not that far from where we're heading in the movie, you know?" Alex said nodding to the idea that soon none of us are going to have legitimate private lives thanks to social networking and government surveillance. "So," he laughs, "I am scared."
We won't continue dwelling on the plot — believe us though, it is fascinating — and instead focus on something more important: Alex's looks! We would've sworn that Stefan was drawn and animated based entirely on his physical features, but the actor says that's not true at all.
"Most of the other characters are based on real people," he said. "They took just a shot of someone and then they animated around that, but Stefan is made up, he doesn't exist. None of [the characters are based on their] actor. It's just characters and faces that Tarik fell in love with."
Well, there goes the one conspiracy theory we were sure we nailed!
Dying to hear Alex's smooth voice and see "Metropia"? It's now available via Tribeca Film On Demand on most major cable and satellite systems!
What do you think: do Alex and Stefan look exactly alike? Is this a movie you'd want to see even without Alexander's voice in it?
** Hollywood Crush Twitter