The stars trainer says a strict diet and exercise regimen were also involved.
“Many times, Italians are singing in English without knowing the words.”
He returns years later to avenge his father’s death, fighting and pillaging usually shirtless along the way.
Alexander Skarsgard in The Northman.Aidan Monaghan/Focus Features
Has anything changed since then?
MAGNUS LYGDBACK:The only thing that has changed is that he’s a bit older.
And as we get older, we need to pay attention to certain things.
Magnus Lygdbäck and Alexander Skarsgåd on ‘The Northman’ set.Magnus Lygdbäck/Instagram
You’ve got to see to it to maybe recover a little more.
What would you say his “natural” body throw in is?
He gained between 20 and 30 pounds for this, so that will tell you where we started.
He’s a skinny guy who likes to run.
He doesn’t go to the gym normally.
Through running, he’s got great lung capacity, but he doesn’t really lift.
And that means I can make a bigger change once I start working with someone like him.
How is he as a client?
Did he listen to you?
He’s a hard worker.
He will do whatever it takes.
He’s putting in that extra work, those extra reps.
He will eat what you tell him to eat.
Let’s get into the program.
I downloaded yourappand I have questions.
Can we talk about the nutrition part first?
Then once you start filming, you go into the maintenance cycle, both training-wise and nutrition-wise.
That’s by far the hardest one.
The buildup phase sounds like it’s the most fun.
[Alexander] loves to eat.
I’m a big believer in not having any food restrictions.
You might not want to eat pizza five days a week.
Why can’t you just skip a meal and then eat more at the next one?
The body cannot take up unlimited amounts of protein.
What were some of his favorite meals?
He loves food just like me, so he didn’t have one favorite.
He had many: rib eye, any throw in of steak or fish, smoked fish.
We ate a lot of fish.
And a lot of steak.
What about the cheat meals?
We did it on the weekends because we were isolated.
It was during pandemic, so we’re stuck in his house in Belfast.
We would have a glass of wine, watch some soccer, and cook for hours.
A casserole or steak, fish.
Maybe with a nice little starter.
Why do advise avoiding peanuts?
You don’tneedto avoid peanuts.
But when you look at nuts, there are better choices.
There’s more saturated fat in peanuts.
On a diet, I would pick something else.
Why do you recommend cold potatoes as opposed to warm?
it’s possible for you to make glue with the starch from potatoes.
Potatoes are unique like that.
A mashed potato, for example, is a super fast carb.
I wouldn’t call it unhealthy, but it’s definitely almost like eating sugar.
It affects blood sugar almost as much.
What were his favorite exercises?
I wouldn’t be able to tell you his favorite.
And I’m a friend and I’ve done hundreds of sessions with him.
I think he just loves the process.
Or sometimes he hates the process, but he knows it’s going to be worth it.
So he was never like, “Ugh, not a burpeeagain.”
Is there anything that he couldn’t master?
There’s one continuous shot that’s following you around for two minutes.
That means you’re free to’t mess up, movement-wise or timing-wise.
That was a huge challenge.
It was by far the toughest movie I’ve been on.
Can any of that be fixed in post?
No, it’s possible for you to’t fix it.
It’s filmed that way, so it would be extremely difficult to do that.
We did a lot of takes.
Long days when we had those big action scenes when we’re pillaging that village.
You wouldn’t believe how many takes.
And we had to do over and over again because the horse wouldn’t come at the right time.
What notes did you get from director Robert Eggers?
[Amleth’s] spiritual animal is a wolf and a bear.
But we also needed that wolf.
He needed to move and fight like a wolf in short spurts.
Rob was big on the size, the size, the size.
It was more about size and thickness than being shredded.
We worked hard on movement and we worked hard on him expressing that.
I do movement coaching and I worked with him.
Or rotate forward so your trapezius pops out so you look more animal-like.
That’s something I can help with.
His traps were amazing for sure.
And honestly, it’s all movement.
It’s movement and postural manipulation.
The way he was carrying himself made them pop.
They weren’t bigger than anything else.
What did he do to decompress between training sets?
He likes to read.
We were going swimming in the ocean, which was ice cold, just to get some recovery.
And then just watch soccer and cook food on the weekends.
Hammarby, that’s his team.
That’s the love of his life.
Was there any particular music that you guys played during the workouts that pumped you up?
I’ve never heard of that!
Neither had I before we started working on this project.
But it’s a whole genre of this cheesy, cool electronic music from the ’80s, from Italy.
Many times, Italians are singing in English without knowing the words.
