Oscar contender Stellan Skarsgård "saved" Sentimental Value by agreeing to play "interesting asshole"

Four years after his previous film The Worst Person in the World became an international hit, Norwegian writer/director Joachim Trier has returned with his latest movie, Sentimental Value, which opens in UK cinemas on Boxing Day.

The film – which premiered at the 2025 Cannes Film Festival and is expected to land numerous Oscar nominations next year – is a family drama that sees once-renowned film director Gustav Borg (Stellan Skarsgård) reunite with his estranged daughters while he is trying to make his next film.

It becomes clear pretty early on that Gustav has not always been the best father to his children, and he does not always come across as the most likeable of characters, which made the decision to cast Skarsgård vital, as Trier explained in an exclusive interview with RadioTimes.com.

"I think he kinda saved us in the writing room," he said. "Because the more we wrote Gustav, and the more interesting an asshole he became, the more we needed a really nice person to actually play him, to create a real character of flesh and blood."

He added that – with this being his sixth feature as director – another factor that fed into Skarsgård's casting was that he was desperate to tick off some of the actors he'd always been keen to work with.

"Stellan was, in my opinion, top of the list of first Nordic actors, but also, in the world in that age category," he said. "You know, what hasn't he done? So before the screenplay was done, I flew to Stockholm and met him and tried to persuade him. And he was shyly pretending he wasn't that interested, but actually he was.

"And it was a sweet lunch that we had and I kind of ended up begging him almost to play and he accepted. So thank God. Gustav Borg is very much that dynamic between an asshole written and a beautiful man playing him."

For his part, Skarsgård claimed that Trier needn't have gone to such extreme efforts to convince him to take on the role – revealing he was interested in starring as soon as he heard of the project.

"Well, he didn't have to do anything, but I didn't tell him that," he smiled. "So he had to pitch in vain... And I also paid the dinner we had together, so I didn't owe him anything, I said to him.

"But I knew I'd take it, because I'd seen his films. And [the] script.. when I read it, was beautiful. It's remarkably light at the same time as it deals with big problems."

In the film, Skarsgård's character has complicated and rather strained relationships with his two daughters, Agnes and Nora (played by Renate Reinsve and Inga Ibsdotter Lilleaas). But it sounds like the on-set relationships between that pair and their on-screen father were rather more easy-going, even if they were a little intimidated by him at first.

"He's very funny, he takes no bulls**t, he is badass," Reinsve said of her co-star. "I was a little intimidated. The first rehearsal we had, it was the scene where he hands Nora the script. But I feel also I could take that fear into the relationship, and the respect.

"I took that in and then actually getting to know him more and more, I was kind of relaxing more and more around this mystic being that is Stellan Skarsgård!"

Meanwhile, Lilleaas described Skarsgård as "a wonderful man" who was "gentle and calm and funny and very fatherly", while also revealing that she had a somewhat intense first day on set with him.

"My first rehearsal was the scene where I yell at him," she explained. "Which I think was really smart because I was so scared before that. And [Trier] filmed the rehearsals. So I was like, this is the real deal. I'm gonna have to go for it.

"And I did. And it felt like we did it for real. And that just broke the whole... like, any kind of intimidation. I just yelled at him and then we were sort of on the same level."

Sentimental Value is released in UK cinemas on Boxing Day.

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