‘Succession’ Fans Couldn’t Get Past The Irony In Mattson’s Roy Family Joke Because He’s A Skarsgård

Let’s take a trip back to 1920s Sweden! Women were finally allowed to vote, Greta Garbo landed her first acting gig, and a young man named Jan Skarsgård was born. Skarsgård didn’t know it yet, but he changed Hollywood as we know it today by helping to create a small army of good-looking Swedes who were born with the peculiar ability to look both charming and scary on screen. History was born that year!

Of course, Jan Skarsgård had a son, Stellan, who became a well-known actor and then spawned more well-known actors, including Alexander, Gustaf, Sam (the one son who just had to go be a doctor instead of an actor), Eija (model instead of an actor) Bill (who often plays a clown) and the youngest Valter. The entire family tree was just a setup for this one joke in the most recent episode of Succession, in which Alexander Skarsgård says the following:

The joke landed well with everyone who has been haunted by a Skarsgård in their life, whether it be Alexander in True Blood or Big Little Lies or Bill in Castle Rock or It or The Barbarian. What is it with these guys? Luckily, they seem to be in on the family business joke, which is why so many people pointed out just how ironic it was that Alexander’s character says such a thing to the Roy family.

Now that the Skarsgård family has found the secret to both cloning and acting, maybe there can be a Lukas Matsson prequel series that stars every iteration of Skarsgård. It would be the scariest show on television.