Alexander Skarsgård says brother Bill played a sexier vampire than him

Alexander Skarsgård doesn’t think he holds the title of ‘Sexiest Vampire’ in the Skarsgård family. 

The actor was recently asked who he thinks is the more beautiful bloodsucker: his True Blood character, Eric Northman, or his brother Bill Skarsgård’s Count Orlok from Nosferatu, Robert Eggers’ 2024 horror film.

“Nosferatu,” Alexander immediately replied on a recent episode of the Happy Sad Confused podcast. “That’s, like, pure sex right there.”

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The brothers couldn’t have picked two more wildly different interpretations of vampires if they’d tried. Bill famously underwent an extensive transformation to play his 1800s Transylvanian ghoul, donning makeup and heavy prosthetics and even lowering his voice an entire octave to amp up his scare factor. With his almost 7-foot stature, visible skin lesions, heavy cloak, raspy voice, and big ol’ broom mustache, the actor is virtually unrecognizable in the film’s final cut. 

Meanwhile, Alexander’s Eric had a much more modern look (and closet) on True Blood. Across all eight seasons of the hit HBO fantasy-horror series, the viking-turned-vamp could often be spotted sporting a V-neck top and leather jacket — that is, of course, if he chose to wear a shirt at all.

When prompted for his “unbiased review” of Bill’s performance in Nosferatu, Alexander responded simply, “I thought it was okay.”

“That’s fair,” Happy Sad Confused host Josh Horowitz replied. “Spoken like a true brother.”

Alexander then explained that, thankfully, he, Bill, and their brother Gustaf Skarsgård have never competed for the same types of roles throughout their acting careers. 

“We’re not, in that regard, competitive,” he said. “I think it would have been harder had we all been vying for the same roles and like, ‘Oh, you’re close to getting something.'”

Especially, Alexander noted, because nothing sucks more (pun fully intended) than to hear about a part after you lost it. “You don’t want to be reminded at every family dinner like, ‘How amazing!'” he said.

“‘Oh, it was good for you? Great! Congratulations on Pennywise,'” Horowitz sarcastically replied, citing another role Bill has played, across both recent It movies and in the upcoming HBO series Welcome to Derry.

“You really want it and then for the next two years you’re going to be reminded how amazing it was, how fun it was,” Alexander said. “So, fortunately, we don’t have to deal with that.”

Watch Alexander discuss playing True Blood‘s Eric in the podcast above.