Now he is potentially going to take home an Oscar that would normally serve as something of a career capper, except that his career shows no signs of slowing down. Instead, Hollywood has only just begun to fully deploy Skarsgård’s potential, giving him a place in the mainstream that he likely could not have predicted for himself. The actor spent the ’70s and ’80s churning away in Swedish TV, theater, and indie cinema, building up name recognition in his home nation. But despite some small but memorable appearances in the U.S. hits The Unbearable Lightness of Being and The Hunt for Red October, he struggled to translate that success outside of Europe. Skarsgård’s eventual international breakthrough was via an unexpected route: He became a close collaborator of the Danish provocateur Lars von Trier, known for creating work that typically divides audiences.