Alexander Skarsgård
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I am not seeing where that was specifically for Alex! Considering she spent Valentines Day with her ex boyfriend it is quite possible that might be to Matt.Alexander received a special message from his girlfriend on Valentine's DayPost from Alexa's IG:View attachment 3606435
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvshowbi...g-ex-boyfriend-Matthew-Hitt-enjoy-stroll.html
Thanks for that review. I knew that the focus was going to be on the female leads, and so it has, even in the reviews. But it's nice to see that the men, especially Alex, are not completely forgotten in the reviews.
ETA: I knew the ladies were going to be the focus, but I had expected at least a couple of interviews with Alex, it would have been nice to read what it was like for him to work with Nicole, Vallee's filming style, etc.
I'm also not seeing that the IG post was Alex-specific. As for Alexa's relationship with Hitt, I have no idea. I know she has a lot of platonic male friends, as Alex has a lot of platonic female friends, so I'm not going to immediately jump to any conclusions.
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I am sorry I didn't mean to imply that there was something between Matt and Alexa I meant that the quote she posted is too vague to be about Alex specifically. I believe if it was she wouldn't have been so subtle. There are all types of "bonds" she could be talking about a friendship was all I meant. I did word it wrong though and I do apologize for that. Supposedly she already dated Matt so I don't believe they are anything more than friends.
http://www.vogue.com/article/hbo-big-little-lies-tv-show-review?mbid=social_twitter
Prepare to Be Obsessed With Big Little Lies
It’s shortly into the second episode of Big Little Lies, the slick new HBO adaptation of Liane Moriarty’s 2014 novel from co-producers Reese Witherspoon and Nicole Kidman, writer David E. Kelley, and director Jean-Marc Vallée, that the show lays its cards on the table.
“What do you look at in the ocean?” Chloe, 6 years old and preternaturally precocious, asks her mom, Madeline, an athleisure-clad latter-day Clytemnestra who passes inordinate time on the sprawling deck outside their living room, cradling a beverage and staring out to sea.
“It’s the big out there,” Witherspoon’s Madeline replies dreamily: “The ocean is powerful. Mostly it’s vast. It’s full of life. Mystery. Who knows what lies out there beneath the surface.”
If you haven’t guessed, Big Little Lies is about the pathos that roils beneath placid surfaces, bottled emotion that spews forth unbridled when one least expects, much the way the vast Pacific spits and roars as it crashes against the rocky coast of Central California. That’s where the show's creators have chosen to transplant this thriller, originally set in Moriarty’s native Australia. More specifically, they’ve moved the action to Monterey, an erstwhile fishing village newly claimed by Silicon Valley–ites, who move there for the breathtakingly beautiful oceanfront property (if for no other reason, watch this miniseries for the real estate porn), and for the option of sending their children to “private schools at public school prices.”
It’s one such school that links our main characters, all parents of children in the same first grade class. Big Little Lies is nominally about kids—the plot is set into motion by a schoolyard spat, in which a little girl gets choked, publicly fingers her culprit, and he insists on his innocence—but it’s really about the childishness of adults, who fight proxy wars through their offspring, whose relationships are often predicated on willful self-delusion, and whose enhanced aptitude for repression and secrecy render their true feelings all the more dangerously potent. “Little boys don’t get to go around anymore hurting little girls, and none of us want to raise bullies,” proclaims the mother of the girl who was choked, but her phrasing suggests another question: What about big boys and big girls?
We open in the aftermath of a murder at the elementary school fundraising gala: flashing lights, a frightened milling crowd of costumed adults, and the heavy, unidentified breathing of a person we assume must be the perpetrator, still in their midst. At a press conference, we learn from two detectives that the victim suffered blows to the head so severe that they liquefied the brain. And during police questioning, a rotating Greek chorus of gossipy administrators and parents begin to describe how we got here.
Flash back to the first day of school: Madeline is the self-styled queen bee of the first grade mothers, a pugnacious meddler who prides herself on her “full-time mommy” status, despite a part-time gig producing community theater. She’s married to the seemingly even-keeled Ed (Adam Scott), a milquetoast Web developer whose slightly sinister manner—combined with an unusually ample beard—suggests that his still waters may actually run deep. Even so, he fails to inspire in his wife the same passion she expends on, say, battling the mayor over attempts to squash her production of the racy puppet musical Avenue Q; bickering with her entitled ex-husband, Nathan (James Tupper), and his sexy new wife, Bonnie (Zoë Kravitz), over their lax parenting of Madeline and Nathan’s teenage daughter, Abigail; or fighting Renata Klein (Laura Dern), a high-powered, high-strung “career mommy” over basically anything.
“Agitation,” says Ed of his wife, “is basically her preferred state.” And the open-eyed pleasure Madeline takes in her own most difficult quality—“I love my grudges,” she jokes, “I tend to them like little pets”—is what makes her potentially insufferable character actually kind of wickedly delightful.
These grudge matches require allies, and Madeline cultivates them in Celeste (Kidman), a beautiful lawyer turned stay-at-home mom, and Jane (Shailene Woodley), a new-to-town single mother whose son Ziggy, we quickly sense, bears both the stigma and the trauma of his parents’ brief, unhappy, mysterious union. (As does Ziggy’s mom: “Jane just didn’t fit in here,” snarks one mom to the police, “kind of like a dirty old Prius parked outside of Barneys.”)
“You’re drawn to damaged people,” Ed tells Madeline, and Celeste and Jane are clearly two sides of the same coin. Celeste lives in a gorgeous modernist Barbie dream house set high on a bluff above the water; Jane in a shabby one-bedroom inland bungalow. Jane willfully navigates the world alone; Celeste has a hot, successful, Ken-doll of a husband, Perry (Alexander Skarsgård), who is also a doting father to their twin boys.
But violence has crept into both of their lives. Something terrifying in Jane’s past haunts her, makes her sleep with a gun under her pillow, and causes her sometimes to regard her son with more than a trace of trepidation. She’s on high alert for signs of criminality in Ziggy, but Celeste turns a blind eye to her boys’ casual fascination with violent cartoons, toy guns, and war games, much like she works overtime to hide the bruises she gets from her husband, who can turn on a dime from loving to ruthless. (I expect this depiction of abuse—highly aestheticized, but also nuanced—will provoke a lot of conversation.)
Friction causes waves, and the energy that accumulates won’t dissipate until it finds something to crash into. Ripples on the water’s surface, by the time they reach shore, are something else entirely. That’s the creepy, insidious sense of menace that infects Big Little Lies. Violence presents first as background noise, small quotidian commotions: short-tempered outbursts from an exhausted mom, a stuffed animal whose leg is accidentally severed. But those minor, unsettling acts only inure us to the bigger stuff, so we can’t see it for what it is until it’s way out of hand.
The miniseries is full of stylish visual conceits. In one recurring loop, hotel room shades raise and lower automatically to reveal a perfect ocean view, the mechanical motor whirring away, a Pavlovian trigger for Jane, from whose memory this image seems to be excavated. The symbolism is clear: We build our civilizations next to nature; we frame and tame the chaos of the great outdoors for our visual pleasure; we keep the wildness at arm’s length, where it titillates but never touches us. We stand at the threshold, looking out, and in so doing, we expose our flank. All things domestic are not domesticated. What about the animals who live on our side of the glass? In Big Little Lies, they’re the most treacherous of all.
Prepare to Be Obsessed With Big Little Lies
It’s shortly into the second episode of Big Little Lies, the slick new HBO adaptation of Liane Moriarty’s 2014 novel from co-producers Reese Witherspoon and Nicole Kidman, writer David E. Kelley, and director Jean-Marc Vallée, that the show lays its cards on the table.
“What do you look at in the ocean?” Chloe, 6 years old and preternaturally precocious, asks her mom, Madeline, an athleisure-clad latter-day Clytemnestra who passes inordinate time on the sprawling deck outside their living room, cradling a beverage and staring out to sea.
“It’s the big out there,” Witherspoon’s Madeline replies dreamily: “The ocean is powerful. Mostly it’s vast. It’s full of life. Mystery. Who knows what lies out there beneath the surface.”
If you haven’t guessed, Big Little Lies is about the pathos that roils beneath placid surfaces, bottled emotion that spews forth unbridled when one least expects, much the way the vast Pacific spits and roars as it crashes against the rocky coast of Central California. That’s where the show's creators have chosen to transplant this thriller, originally set in Moriarty’s native Australia. More specifically, they’ve moved the action to Monterey, an erstwhile fishing village newly claimed by Silicon Valley–ites, who move there for the breathtakingly beautiful oceanfront property (if for no other reason, watch this miniseries for the real estate porn), and for the option of sending their children to “private schools at public school prices.”
It’s one such school that links our main characters, all parents of children in the same first grade class. Big Little Lies is nominally about kids—the plot is set into motion by a schoolyard spat, in which a little girl gets choked, publicly fingers her culprit, and he insists on his innocence—but it’s really about the childishness of adults, who fight proxy wars through their offspring, whose relationships are often predicated on willful self-delusion, and whose enhanced aptitude for repression and secrecy render their true feelings all the more dangerously potent. “Little boys don’t get to go around anymore hurting little girls, and none of us want to raise bullies,” proclaims the mother of the girl who was choked, but her phrasing suggests another question: What about big boys and big girls?
We open in the aftermath of a murder at the elementary school fundraising gala: flashing lights, a frightened milling crowd of costumed adults, and the heavy, unidentified breathing of a person we assume must be the perpetrator, still in their midst. At a press conference, we learn from two detectives that the victim suffered blows to the head so severe that they liquefied the brain. And during police questioning, a rotating Greek chorus of gossipy administrators and parents begin to describe how we got here.
Flash back to the first day of school: Madeline is the self-styled queen bee of the first grade mothers, a pugnacious meddler who prides herself on her “full-time mommy” status, despite a part-time gig producing community theater. She’s married to the seemingly even-keeled Ed (Adam Scott), a milquetoast Web developer whose slightly sinister manner—combined with an unusually ample beard—suggests that his still waters may actually run deep. Even so, he fails to inspire in his wife the same passion she expends on, say, battling the mayor over attempts to squash her production of the racy puppet musical Avenue Q; bickering with her entitled ex-husband, Nathan (James Tupper), and his sexy new wife, Bonnie (Zoë Kravitz), over their lax parenting of Madeline and Nathan’s teenage daughter, Abigail; or fighting Renata Klein (Laura Dern), a high-powered, high-strung “career mommy” over basically anything.
“Agitation,” says Ed of his wife, “is basically her preferred state.” And the open-eyed pleasure Madeline takes in her own most difficult quality—“I love my grudges,” she jokes, “I tend to them like little pets”—is what makes her potentially insufferable character actually kind of wickedly delightful.
These grudge matches require allies, and Madeline cultivates them in Celeste (Kidman), a beautiful lawyer turned stay-at-home mom, and Jane (Shailene Woodley), a new-to-town single mother whose son Ziggy, we quickly sense, bears both the stigma and the trauma of his parents’ brief, unhappy, mysterious union. (As does Ziggy’s mom: “Jane just didn’t fit in here,” snarks one mom to the police, “kind of like a dirty old Prius parked outside of Barneys.”)
“You’re drawn to damaged people,” Ed tells Madeline, and Celeste and Jane are clearly two sides of the same coin. Celeste lives in a gorgeous modernist Barbie dream house set high on a bluff above the water; Jane in a shabby one-bedroom inland bungalow. Jane willfully navigates the world alone; Celeste has a hot, successful, Ken-doll of a husband, Perry (Alexander Skarsgård), who is also a doting father to their twin boys.
But violence has crept into both of their lives. Something terrifying in Jane’s past haunts her, makes her sleep with a gun under her pillow, and causes her sometimes to regard her son with more than a trace of trepidation. She’s on high alert for signs of criminality in Ziggy, but Celeste turns a blind eye to her boys’ casual fascination with violent cartoons, toy guns, and war games, much like she works overtime to hide the bruises she gets from her husband, who can turn on a dime from loving to ruthless. (I expect this depiction of abuse—highly aestheticized, but also nuanced—will provoke a lot of conversation.)
Friction causes waves, and the energy that accumulates won’t dissipate until it finds something to crash into. Ripples on the water’s surface, by the time they reach shore, are something else entirely. That’s the creepy, insidious sense of menace that infects Big Little Lies. Violence presents first as background noise, small quotidian commotions: short-tempered outbursts from an exhausted mom, a stuffed animal whose leg is accidentally severed. But those minor, unsettling acts only inure us to the bigger stuff, so we can’t see it for what it is until it’s way out of hand.
The miniseries is full of stylish visual conceits. In one recurring loop, hotel room shades raise and lower automatically to reveal a perfect ocean view, the mechanical motor whirring away, a Pavlovian trigger for Jane, from whose memory this image seems to be excavated. The symbolism is clear: We build our civilizations next to nature; we frame and tame the chaos of the great outdoors for our visual pleasure; we keep the wildness at arm’s length, where it titillates but never touches us. We stand at the threshold, looking out, and in so doing, we expose our flank. All things domestic are not domesticated. What about the animals who live on our side of the glass? In Big Little Lies, they’re the most treacherous of all.
https://www.instagram.com/p/BQnl6Q1g8E-/?taken-by=worldofskarsgard
Teaser clip of Perry and Celeste.
ugh sorry I dont know how to insert instagram videos on here.
Teaser clip of Perry and Celeste.
ugh sorry I dont know how to insert instagram videos on here.
Thanks for the review. There are so very many of them now, and for the most part they're positive.
It’s more common to see Kidman swimming in these dark currents, but she doesn’t operate on brittle/sad autopilot as Celeste, a lawyer turned stay-at-home mother married to a dashing younger man (Skarsgård) and living in an eye-popping modernist mansion overlooking the sea. Much is said about how perfect Celeste’s life is: loads of money, beautiful children, handsome husband with whom the love is abundant and the sex frequent. So, we pretty much instantly suspect that something must be off. And off it is, in even more sinister fashion than expected. The slow, scary unmasking of Celeste’s painful inner life gives Kidman myriad subtle and vibrant shades to play, meshing steeliness with fragility the way the best Kidman roles do. She’s especially transfixing in some excellently written therapy scenes with the great Robin Weigert, whose marriage-counselor character proves a probing foil to Celeste’s deflection. Their scenes are some of the most riveting of the series...
http://www.vanityfair.com/hollywood...es-reese-witherspoon-nicole-kidman-hbo-review
..Kidman is remarkable as Celeste, the mother of boy twins, whose husband — Skarsgard’s Perry — is beating her up. It’s a dynamic familiar from shows like “Law & Order: SVU,” as Perry smacks Celeste for an imagined betrayal and Celeste, embarrassed, hides the truth behind their public image of a happy marriage. But the two actors are excellent, Skarsgard for his pathetic bursts of insecurity and Kidman for suppressing her rage to the point where we wait for her to break. At times, even when Kidman’s face is completely still — and not just because of injectables — we can see the volcano bubbling...
https://www.bostonglobe.com/arts/te...little-lies/UAQBsX4ZKnABpPPXUN8AVK/story.html
Could a playground spat get this out of control? “Big Little Lies” suggests so, but it also thoroughly probes beneath the surfaces of Madeline, Celeste and Renata’s marital and personal difficulties. It also uncovers Jane’s darkest secret. Husbands factor prominently in the narrative (as one witness explains to the cops, “It wasn’t just the mothers”), especially Celeste’s frighteningly abusive spouse, Perry (Alexander Skarsgard), and Madeline’s emotionally neglected second husband, Ed (Adam Scott).
“Big Little Lies” is also, to my recollection, the rare drama that treats children as key characters rather than incidental nuisances, demanding performances from its youngest cast members that other shows would use mainly as precocious walk-ons. It’s a task that nearly all the children in “Big Little Lies” manage to fulfill, to such a degree that it’s tempting to consider the story entirely from their perspectives.
That’s only a passing thought, however, since Witherspoon and Kidman have clearly decided that “Big Little Lies” is not merely a chance to dabble in prestige TV. Even though they’re both playing to type (Kidman once again as an ethereally composed woman facing sexual and physical violence; Witherspoon as another self-absorbed busybody who hits a breaking point), they have each outdone themselves here, bringing to their roles a real sense for the contours of pain, as well as a mature, wry sense of humor.
In television, script-writing is often accomplished through a group effort overseen by a showrunner, while directing is handed off from episode to episode. Here, Kelley wrote and Vallee directed every episode of “Big Little Lies,” which not only heightens continuity (we’re basically looking at a seven-hour film), it once again makes me wish that more of the new shows we’re getting these days would commit themselves to a single, terrific season — a contained story, rather than a launching pad for a long saga.
Between Kelley’s knack for melding irony and suffering and Vallée’s dreamy attention to the illusions that prop up the characters’ coastal California bliss, “Big Little Lies” becomes a sinfully pleasurable and even thought-provoking experience.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/ente...cee7ce475fc_story.html?utm_term=.4f45130fb305
It’s more common to see Kidman swimming in these dark currents, but she doesn’t operate on brittle/sad autopilot as Celeste, a lawyer turned stay-at-home mother married to a dashing younger man (Skarsgård) and living in an eye-popping modernist mansion overlooking the sea. Much is said about how perfect Celeste’s life is: loads of money, beautiful children, handsome husband with whom the love is abundant and the sex frequent. So, we pretty much instantly suspect that something must be off. And off it is, in even more sinister fashion than expected. The slow, scary unmasking of Celeste’s painful inner life gives Kidman myriad subtle and vibrant shades to play, meshing steeliness with fragility the way the best Kidman roles do. She’s especially transfixing in some excellently written therapy scenes with the great Robin Weigert, whose marriage-counselor character proves a probing foil to Celeste’s deflection. Their scenes are some of the most riveting of the series...
http://www.vanityfair.com/hollywood...es-reese-witherspoon-nicole-kidman-hbo-review
..Kidman is remarkable as Celeste, the mother of boy twins, whose husband — Skarsgard’s Perry — is beating her up. It’s a dynamic familiar from shows like “Law & Order: SVU,” as Perry smacks Celeste for an imagined betrayal and Celeste, embarrassed, hides the truth behind their public image of a happy marriage. But the two actors are excellent, Skarsgard for his pathetic bursts of insecurity and Kidman for suppressing her rage to the point where we wait for her to break. At times, even when Kidman’s face is completely still — and not just because of injectables — we can see the volcano bubbling...
https://www.bostonglobe.com/arts/te...little-lies/UAQBsX4ZKnABpPPXUN8AVK/story.html
Could a playground spat get this out of control? “Big Little Lies” suggests so, but it also thoroughly probes beneath the surfaces of Madeline, Celeste and Renata’s marital and personal difficulties. It also uncovers Jane’s darkest secret. Husbands factor prominently in the narrative (as one witness explains to the cops, “It wasn’t just the mothers”), especially Celeste’s frighteningly abusive spouse, Perry (Alexander Skarsgard), and Madeline’s emotionally neglected second husband, Ed (Adam Scott).
“Big Little Lies” is also, to my recollection, the rare drama that treats children as key characters rather than incidental nuisances, demanding performances from its youngest cast members that other shows would use mainly as precocious walk-ons. It’s a task that nearly all the children in “Big Little Lies” manage to fulfill, to such a degree that it’s tempting to consider the story entirely from their perspectives.
That’s only a passing thought, however, since Witherspoon and Kidman have clearly decided that “Big Little Lies” is not merely a chance to dabble in prestige TV. Even though they’re both playing to type (Kidman once again as an ethereally composed woman facing sexual and physical violence; Witherspoon as another self-absorbed busybody who hits a breaking point), they have each outdone themselves here, bringing to their roles a real sense for the contours of pain, as well as a mature, wry sense of humor.
In television, script-writing is often accomplished through a group effort overseen by a showrunner, while directing is handed off from episode to episode. Here, Kelley wrote and Vallee directed every episode of “Big Little Lies,” which not only heightens continuity (we’re basically looking at a seven-hour film), it once again makes me wish that more of the new shows we’re getting these days would commit themselves to a single, terrific season — a contained story, rather than a launching pad for a long saga.
Between Kelley’s knack for melding irony and suffering and Vallée’s dreamy attention to the illusions that prop up the characters’ coastal California bliss, “Big Little Lies” becomes a sinfully pleasurable and even thought-provoking experience.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/ente...cee7ce475fc_story.html?utm_term=.4f45130fb305
..Witherspoon is Madeline, a super-involved, super-intense mom, and Kidman is Celeste, whose seemingly storybook marriage to the handsome and charismatic Perry is the envy of almost everyone else in Monterey — but perhaps shouldn't be.
Perry is played by Alexander Skarsgard, who's already scored impressive roles on HBO in Generation Kill and True Blood. His scenes with Kidman are the best, and most chilling, in Big Little Lies. But there are lots of strong roles and performances here, including Laura Dern and Shailene Woodley, playing two other combative Monterey moms. Like mother bears protecting their cubs, they'd kill to protect their young — and, most likely, one of them has...
http://www.npr.org/2017/02/17/51577...g-little-lies-make-a-case-for-subscription-tv
Perry is played by Alexander Skarsgard, who's already scored impressive roles on HBO in Generation Kill and True Blood. His scenes with Kidman are the best, and most chilling, in Big Little Lies. But there are lots of strong roles and performances here, including Laura Dern and Shailene Woodley, playing two other combative Monterey moms. Like mother bears protecting their cubs, they'd kill to protect their young — and, most likely, one of them has...
http://www.npr.org/2017/02/17/51577...g-little-lies-make-a-case-for-subscription-tv
Thanks, Buckeye and Esizzle.
First episode of BLL was tonight (in the U.S.). Who watched? What did everyone think?
Related videos:
From Episode 1: Somebody's Dead:
"In the Weeks Ahead" HBO Big Little Lies preview:
Promo still of Alex as Perry Wright:
Source: HBO.com
First episode of BLL was tonight (in the U.S.). Who watched? What did everyone think?
Related videos:
From Episode 1: Somebody's Dead:
"In the Weeks Ahead" HBO Big Little Lies preview:
Promo still of Alex as Perry Wright:
Source: HBO.com
Thank you, Santress! I had a great Alex weekend. I re-watched War on Everyone on Saturday and Tarzan on Sunday right before the BLL premiere. I thought it was very true to the book. The characters are just as you would picture them. There will never be enough Alex to suit, but he did have a good bit of screen time and got to show a little range last night. Of course he looked good, but a little too squeaky clean, which I suppose is the point. The outside doesn't match what's inside. I'm looking forward to the subsequent episodes as the characters get fleshed out and the secrets are told. The reviews for Nicole and Alex's scenes together have been fantastic by the critics and Reese Witherspoon herself! Next week's episode looks exciting and will be available on Friday. I'll be viewing early!
new gifs!
The first episode was everything I was expecting and more. Great acting and beautiful shots. Not enough Alex though!
Thanks, ladies.
I'm enjoying BLL so far too. Will keep watching.
New behind-the-scenes photo of Alex and Derrick Barry filming War on Everyone in Iceland (May 2015?) shared today (February 20, 2017):
“Catching the beautiful view in Iceland with #Alexander Skarsgard in between takes during filming #War On Everyone.Photo: #Malcolm Barrett (at Reykjavík, Iceland).”
-derrickbarry instagram
Also on tumblr:
http://derrickbarry.tumblr.com/post/157501725481/catching-the-beautiful-view-in-iceland-with
I'm enjoying BLL so far too. Will keep watching.
New behind-the-scenes photo of Alex and Derrick Barry filming War on Everyone in Iceland (May 2015?) shared today (February 20, 2017):
“Catching the beautiful view in Iceland with #Alexander Skarsgard in between takes during filming #War On Everyone.Photo: #Malcolm Barrett (at Reykjavík, Iceland).”
-derrickbarry instagram
Also on tumblr:
http://derrickbarry.tumblr.com/post/157501725481/catching-the-beautiful-view-in-iceland-with
I really liked the first episode of BLL! I read the book and have to admit so far this TV adaptation is not at all disappointing. What a great cast, beautiful shots and of course Alexander, so happy for him to be a part of this project! Thumbs up!