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Christine Baranski has revealed that Stellan Skarsgård didn’t have the greatest experience shooting Mamma Mia!, the blockbuster film adaptation of the Abba musical.
Mamma Mia! was adapted from the hit West End show in 2008, and followed Meryl Streep’s Donna as she unites three past suitors who may be the father of her daughter Sophie (Amanda Seyfried).
Swedish actor Skarsgård, the father of actors Alexander and Bill, played one of the three male leads alongside Pierce Brosnan and Colin Firth – and while Brosnan and Firth felt slightly more relaxed getting into the spirit of the jukebox musical, it’s been claimed that Skarsgård struggled.
At the end of the film, directed by Phyllida Lloyd, the entirety of the cast can be seen cutting some moves to Abba’s 1976 hit “Dancing Queen”. According to Baranski, however, Andor star Skarsgård had to be coaxed out of his shell.
Baranski, 73, revealed Skarsgård’s frustration with the boogie scenes in a new interview, stating: “I don’t think he’ll mind my saying he hated having to do the dance stuff.”
The actor – who played Donna's friend Tanya – said that Brosnan “was game” and would “skip down the hill multiple times” while Firth “meant all of his moves ironically”.
“When we finally went down the hill in ‘Dancing Queen’ and landed on the dock, the camera would move around and it usually would avoid Stellan,” Baranski told The Late Show with Stephen Colbert.
When Ol Parker stepped in to direct 2018 sequel Mamma Mia! Here We Go Again, he would inform the actors ahead of their close-ups, pleading: “You have got to do the moves now – you have simply got to do the moves!”
Baranski said that Skarsgård, unimpressed, would “let out a string of expletives” in response. She told Colbert: “It’s as if Ol had asked him to read Arabic poetry while jumping rope. He was like ‘I can’t do that!’”
However, Skarsgård went ahead and danced for the scene, with Baranski stating: “He did it. It was so funny. I love Stellan. He’s a wonderful actor, and he was a great colleague.”
The actor – also known for his roles in Good Will Hunting (1997) and Dune: Part Two (2024) – previously acknowledged that it was “absurd to ask” him to be in a musical given he “can’t sing or dance”.
He said he felt compelled to say yes when he learnt that Brosnan and Firth had signed on, telling Vanity Fair that their participation made him feel “a little safer”.
The first Mamma Mia! was a box office smash, grossing $611.4m at the box office. The sequel received even more favourable reviews and grossed $402m worldwide. The musical that the films are based on debuted on the West End in 1999.
English (US) ·