The secret to Alexander Skarsgård's physique in The Northman ? Cheesy '80s Italian disco music
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Alexander Skarsgård trained for months to transform from skinny to sinewy in order to play a fierce Viking in Robert Eggers' action epic The Northman. But in addition to a clean, protein-heavy diet, brutal exercise regimen, and overall attention to maintaining just the right level of Scandinavian jacked-ness, the Big Little Lies star had a secret weapon: Italo music.
"It's a whole genre of cheesy, cool electronic music from the '80s, from Italy," says Skarsgård's trainer Magnus Lygdbäck, who has also sculpted Ben Affleck, Gal Gadot, and Alicia Vikander for their roles as Batman, Wonder Woman and Tomb Raider, respectively. "Many times, Italians are singing in English without knowing the words." (For the full effect, EW recommends watching The Northman trailer (above) on mute while playing some choice Italo.)
In the film, Skarsgård plays Amleth, a prince who fled his kingdom as a child after his uncle (Claes Bang) murders his father (Ethan Hawke) and takes up with his mother (Nicole Kidman). He returns years later to avenge his father's death, fighting and pillaging — usually shirtless — along the way. Lygdbäck sat down with EW to talk about his cozy cheat day weekends with Skarsgård, the magic of cold potatoes, and the true love of The Northman's star's life.
ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY: You trained Skarsgård in Tarzan six years ago, so obviously you're familiar with his body and his method. Has anything changed since then?
MAGNUS LYGDBÄCK: The only thing that has changed is that he's a bit older. And as we get older, we need to pay attention to certain things. You've got to make sure to maybe recover a little more. And you've got to make sure that certain body parts like shoulders and hips and knees are really primed or prepared for putting on this much muscle mass.
What would you say his "natural" body type is?
He's skinny. He gained between 20 and 30 pounds for this, so that will tell you where we started. He's a skinny guy who likes to run. He doesn't go to the gym normally. Through running, he's got great lung capacity, but he doesn't really lift. And that means I can make a bigger change once I start working with someone like him.
How is he as a client? Did he listen to you?
If you look that good and you get that much of a change, it means that he's a dream client. He never complains. He's a hard worker. He will do whatever it takes. He's putting in that extra work, those extra reps. He will eat what you tell him to eat. Sometimes people don't want to eat that extra chicken breast or they don't want eat at 3 PM because they're not hungry.
Aidan Monaghan/Focus Features Alexander Skarsgard in The Northman
Let's get into the program. I downloaded your app and I have questions. Can we talk about the nutrition part first?
Always when building a superhero or doing a transformation like this, you go through three different cycles, training wise and nutrition wise. First, you have the buildup or the bulk-up cycle, where you want to put up as much muscle mass as possible without worrying too much about the body fat. Then you have the cutting cycle where you try to shed all the fat that needs to be shedded while keeping the muscle mass. Then once you start filming, you go into the maintenance cycle, both training-wise and nutrition-wise. That's by far the hardest one.
The buildup phase sounds like it's the most fun.
[Alexander] loves to eat. I'm a big believer in not having any food restrictions. You might not want to eat pizza five days a week. But for me, 17 out of 20 meals should be on point, 3 out of 20 you should eat whatever you want. With that said, those 17 out of 20 meals that were clean and on point — he ate everything from steak to lamb to chicken, a lot of fish, eggs, quinoa, barley, farro, potatoes, even pasta and a ton of vegetables.
On your plan, one has to eat, because it was five times a day, every two to three hours. Why can't you just skip a meal and then eat more at the next one?
The body cannot take up unlimited amounts of protein. You've got 30 to 50 grams that the body can absorb per meal, so you've got to space it out.
What were some of his favorite meals?
He loves food just like me, so he didn't have one favorite. He had many: rib eye, any type of steak or fish, smoked fish. We ate a lot of fish. And a lot of steak.
Magnus Lygdbäck/Instagram Magnus Lygdbäck and Alexander Skarsgåd on 'The Northman' set
What about the cheat meals?
We did it on the weekends because we were isolated. It was during pandemic, so we're stuck in his house in Belfast. We would have a glass of wine, watch some soccer, and cook for hours. A casserole or steak, fish. Maybe with a nice little starter. It was more about the quantities — I would say that we're overeating and maybe adding a glass of wine.
Why do advise avoiding peanuts?
You don't need to avoid peanuts. But when you look at nuts, there are better choices. There's more saturated fat in peanuts. On a diet, I would pick something else.
Why do you recommend cold potatoes as opposed to warm?
You can make glue with the starch from potatoes. When you [cook] a potato, and then you allow it to go cold, the starch binds the potato together. It becomes a slower carb — it takes a longer time for your body to digest it, so it can draw energy from that potato for a longer time. Potatoes are unique like that. A mashed potato, for example, is a super fast carb. I wouldn't call it unhealthy, but it's definitely almost like eating sugar. It affects blood sugar almost as much.
What were his favorite exercises?
He's so focused that he would show up every day and put everything he had into every single exercise. I wouldn't be able to tell you his favorite. And I'm a friend and I've done hundreds of sessions with him. I think he just loves the process. Or sometimes he hates the process, but he knows it's going to be worth it.
So he was never like, "Ugh, not a burpee again."
Never.
Is there anything that he couldn't master?
I would say this is the most challenging movie you can possibly make because it's filmed with one camera, not two or three. There's one continuous shot that's following you around for two minutes. That means you can't mess up, movement-wise or timing-wise. If you're throwing an axe, punching someone, cracking a skull, jumping, it needs to be perfect. That was a huge challenge. It was by far the toughest movie I've been on.
Can any of that be fixed in post?
No, you can't fix it. It's filmed that way, so it would be extremely difficult to do that. We did a lot of takes. Long days when we had those big action scenes when we're pillaging that village. You wouldn't believe how many takes. And we had to do over and over again because the horse wouldn't come at the right time.
What notes did you get from director Robert Eggers?
[Amleth's] spiritual animal is a wolf and a bear. So we wanted him to move like a bear and be that guy who's towering up and halting forward, looking like an absolute beast. But we also needed that wolf. He needed to move and fight like a wolf in short spurts. Rob was big on the size, the size, the size. It was more about size and thickness than being shredded. We worked hard on movement and we worked hard on him expressing that.
How?
I do movement coaching and I worked with him. An actor can give you 200 emotions, but I can tell him to give more depth in the back, so your rhomboids pop out more. Or rotate forward so your trapezius pops out so you look more animal-like. That's something I can help with.
His traps were amazing for sure.
Yeah. And honestly, it's all movement. It's movement and postural manipulation. The way he was carrying himself made them pop. They weren't bigger than anything else.
What did he do to decompress between training sets?
He likes to read. We were going swimming in the ocean, which was ice cold, just to get some recovery. And then just watch soccer and cook food on the weekends. Hammarby, that's his team. And he'll go to the games when he is in Stockholm, and he'll stand there up with all the fans and he'll sing. That's the love of his life.
Was there any particular music that you guys played during the workouts that pumped you up?
We were listening to a lot of old-school electronic music from the '80s, and also an Italian disco genre called Italo.
I've never heard of that!
Neither had I before we started working on this project. But it's a whole genre of this cheesy, cool electronic music from the '80s, from Italy. Many times, Italians are singing in English without knowing the words.
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