‘I saw the script and went: oooh!’ Olivia Colman and Alexander Skårsgard on their steamy folk-horror movie Wicker - 二十一点发牌

She portrays a despondent fisherwoman. He embodies a figure crafted from wicker, wholly devoted to her satisfaction. How did the performers experience this peculiar, heartfelt bond – and what personal insights did Colman draw from her own marital life?

Another year brings another risqué comedic drama where Alexander Skarsgård fulfills the fantasies of an outsider. “I absolutely adored Pillion!” exclaims Olivia Colman, characteristically profane from the start, referencing last year’s acclaimed British indie film where Skarsgård played a leather-clad dominant with a timid traffic officer as his submissive. “And that final kiss… Aww.” The 52-year-old Oscar recipient for The Favourite lets out a theatrical sniffle, gives a slight shake of her frizzy gray hair, then pretends to wipe her eyes.

Seated beside her in a London hotel room, sporting a vivid orange “I’m With Stupid” T-shirt, Skarsgård nods appreciatively. In Pillion, Harry Melling had the honor of being ravaged by the 50-year-old Swedish actor. Now it’s Colman’s turn in Wicker, an earthy adult fairy tale filmed in Budapest and set in a medieval hamlet populated almost entirely by British comedic actors who communicate in a mix of archaically formal (“Happy to transact with you”) and bluntly colloquial (“I’d better fuck off”) language. Among them are Phil Daniels as a leering butcher and Richard E Grant as a doctor who is even more inept than Grant was as a Celebrity Traitor.