Source: The Guardian - November 27, 2015

Stellan Skarsgard: my family values

The actor on being the eldest of five and a father of eight and the Swedish art of compromise.

My parents were rather unconventional and did not accept rules unless they thought they were defendable. They were atheists when Sweden was a very Christian country. The ethical code of my upbringing was be good to people and try not to hurt them. You don’t need a god to tell you that.

My father used to stress that he valued us all as individuals, but that no one in the world was worth more or less than anyone else. This was a good principle to establish in a large family. I was the eldest of five children and although I never saw myself as any kind of leader, as the eldest, like it or not, you have some power inherent in that position.

My siblings and I share a summer house and one year they felled a birch tree, which I had remarked was particularly beautiful, as a belated reaction against me and challenge to my position. I didn’t really care and I think that, even when you have obvious power in a relationship, as long as you remember that everyone has equal value personally, then those relationships will remain relatively harmonious.

I have eight children, six from my first marriage and two from my second, and I have tried to teach them to question everything. This forces you to think about whether you are right or wrong and to sharpen up arguments in defence of a position. It also makes for extremely loud gatherings.

I see all the children together every three months or so, but at least five or six of them every week. To outsiders, our loud discussions around the dinner table might appear confrontational, but only by discussing things can you reach compromise. Sweden is the homeland of compromise. Our whole culture is compromising and I think this works well for a family, too, as long as you don’t allow it to stifle free speech.

There are 36 years between the eldest and youngest of my eight children and only one of them is a girl. During each of my wives’ subsequent pregnancies, my daughter would say, “I hope it’s not a girl.” She’s very strong, stronger in many ways than the boys, and relishes her position.

When I told my father I wanted to go into acting, he was supportive – he had been an amateur actor, but told me to finish my studies so I had something to fall back on. But I was 16 and had no intention of falling back, so I left school anyway. He was OK with that. He would always give me his opinion, but never insist that I follow it.

To my own children, four of whom are actors, my advice was that they should think about what they wanted to do and try to do that. I have never had ambitions for them, other than that they should be decent people, and I have tried to show them that having a full life is not a selfish pursuit, but one that makes you of more value to your friends and family.

I think the sort of acting I do helps you understand people and the world a little better. I’m not a great believer in black and white. Life is full of moral ambiguity and it’s important that we try to understand the complexities of individuals and how these make them behave, for better or for worse.

I think you need to show children that the world is an uncertain place and there is no such thing as security. You never know when you might lose your job or become seriously ill, or when a terror attack might take place or a war begin. The only thing you can do is to try to make your family feel loved and valued and hope they will carry that knowledge through life, whatever it brings.