How Bill Skarsgård Put on Career-Best Performance in Dead Man’s Wire
ComingSoon Editor-in-Chief Tyler Treese spoke with Bill Skarsgård about the tense thriller movie Dead Man’s Wire, which sees the actor’s best performance yet. Skarsgård discussed playing a real-life figure, adding comedy to the film, and more. Directed by Gus Van Sant, Dead Man’s Wire is now playing in select theaters and will go wide on January 16, 2026.
“Based on a true story, the 1977 kidnapping of a prominent banker grips the nation and turns the abductor into an outlaw folk hero. As the media frenzy peaks, the standoff becomes a spectacle of desperation, defiance, and blurred justice, which resonates even today,” says the synopsis.
Tyler Treese: Bill, I thought you did such a great job of approaching Tony with sympathy and understanding. You’re really great at building characters and making them feel lived in. I know there are a lot of audio recordings to work off for Tony and news coverage from the time. So, how did that change for you when approaching a real-life figure as a character?
Bill Skarsgård: Thank you, Tyler. The source material was great. It was almost distracting to an extent, but my in to the character was just researching him as much as I could and listening to his voice and how he speaks. There was so much footage of the real event and recordings of the actual phone calls to the 9-1-1 station and the radio show. So, that was kind of where I started.
Then at one point it was getting in the way because I felt like I was impersonating someone that I don’t look anything alike. So, I had to kind of distance myself from the real guy and then just kind of rely on the research I had done. The real guy will color the performance in a way that it feels like a character, but obviously, I think heavily inspired by the real guy. So, it was important that his sort of spirit and energy were carried with me in the performance.
Tyler Treese: This is a very tense thriller, but it’s also very funny. You’re taking your milk with ice. Tony’s enjoying the attention. He’s acting psychotic, but he’s also very apologetic constantly. How was it adding that layer of comedy to your performance?
Bill Skarsgård: I found the Real Tony quite funny. It was just something that came. Basically, on the first day of shooting, the first scene we did, the character Tony made was sort of a vehicle. It was just easy to improvise, and I just found him funny. So a lot of it was very spontaneous.
Like the milk with ice was just something… I don’t know, it just sounded funny and sort of psychotic, you know? A funny little trivia thing is I actually got an email from a guy in the industry saying, “I watched the movie, so great. I also drink milk with ice.” I was like, “…Cool?” So, that made me smile.
You can’t force improv. If you ever try it, if you force it, it doesn’t work. It’s sort of like a freestyle or free form. Like, you just need to kind of be in a flow state, and things just kind of happen, and you can’t really control it. If it works, it’s really cool. If it doesn’t, it’s terrible. But for whatever reason, like I spoke fluid Tony Kiritsis, and I could very much like improv, and there was something inherently funny about the real guy and the character.
I remember after the first scene that we did, Gus was like, “Huh, this is okay. This is more [funny].” He was surprised that the movie turned out more of a comedy. Like it was okay, this is funnier than maybe he had expected, even though the, the script’s funny at times too. But it was just, I think, Tony was surprisingly funny to all of us in a way. It’s just kind of how it turned out. I still haven’t seen it with an audience, but from what I hear, people really do laugh at it, which is great.
Thanks to Bill Skarsgård for taking the time to discuss Dead Man’s Wire.
Source: Comingsoon.net