For a movie about Norse gods, so far there’s been a severe lack of Scandinavians in the announced cast for Thor. Chris Hemsworth (Thor himself) is Australian, Natalie Portman and Sam Jackson and American, and Tom Hiddleston and Brian Blessed are British.
However it now appears someone with a bit of Norse blood has joined the cast, with the Swedish news site, Ystads Allehanda (no, we don’t read Swedish, but there’s a translation here), reporting that Stellan Skarsgard with be appearing in the Kenneth Branagh comic book adapatation. However the one thing Skarsgard hasn’t said is what role he’ll be playing, although as a native Swede, you’d hope he’ll be a resident of Valhalla and wielding a bit of Norse firepower.
Interestingly, Marvel was so sure of the pulling power of Thor that they initally wanted Skarsgard to sign up without reading a script, however he refused and managed to pull a few strings and is now one of the few people in the world who’s actually seen the screenplay. Unfortunately though, he isn’t giving details on what we can expect.
It’s good news for the Skarsgard family, as his son, Alexander (True Blood), was at one point linked to the main role of Thor himself, but lost out to Hemsworth, so at least one family member will be appearing in the comic book movie.
Filming on Thor is due to begin at the very beginning of next year, with the film in cinemas on May 20th, 2011.