By Variety | Created at 2026-09-29 13:02:12 | Updated at 2026-09-29 15:16:57
5 hours ago
Ever since its premiere at Sundance, “Wicker” has been generating headlines. Mostly thanks to its erotic scenes featuring Olivia Colman and Alexander Skarsgård as her custom-woven lover, with both characters putting an enthusiastic spin on Taylor Swift’s “Wood.”
The film’s raunchiness might have surprised some unsuspecting viewers at Zurich Film Festival. But Colman adored the script.
“I’ve never read anything like it before. It’s in my top three scripts that I’ve loved and I’ve done,” she said at the fest, where it celebrated its European premiere.
“It’s beautiful, funny and original. And yes, the only way you can sell it is by having a picture of Alex as a very sexy basket.”
In “Wicker,” Colman plays a medieval fisherwoman who’s constantly ostracized – until she marries a wicker husband (Skarsgård), created by the basket weaver (Peter Dinklage).
It’s directed by Alex Huston Fischer and Eleanor Wilson, and adapted from “The Wicker Husband” by Ursula Wills-Jones.
While no stranger to risqué films thanks to “Pillion,” Skarsgård – better known for darker roles – had to embrace his softer side for a change.
“To be honest, I found it terrifying. I feel way more comfortable playing dark, twisted, demented characters,” he said.
“This was a departure and yeah, I was confused in the beginning about how to approach this. He’s so sweet, so tender and caring, and all those things that I can’t relate to personally.”
The famed Wētā Workshop created his woven body.
“It was extraordinary. It really was,” he said, recalling seeing it for the first time.
“Wētā is behind ‘The Lord of the Rings’ and that whole universe. They wanted practical [effects], which was really exciting. This was not going to be a CGI version.”
He added: “I’ll never forget the first time I saw the wicker husband at the workshop in Budapest, and looked at that version of myself. We’d done a bunch of tests and scans, but I was shooting something else and they were obviously in New Zealand. Then they built it. Stepping into it was also a way of finding the character because it defined his physicality and who he was.”
Learning how to move was tricky, though.
“It was glued to my face! It was crucial that [the mask] would move with my facial movements so that it wouldn’t be completely flattened, but that meant I had to exaggerate them. Al and Elle, our directors, kept saying that normal movements wouldn’t really register. At first, that felt a little strange, like you really had to overact. Luckily, we had a few days to perfect that.”
Obviously, Colman has never acted alongside a similar costar.
“I’ve never done it before, but we’re in that magical world where we’re just talking to each other. We got on very well, and giggled a lot. It was lovely to play those two people. Well, one person and a basket.”
Despite its twisted premise, “Wicker” – whose humor echoes the madness of “Monty Python and the Holy Grail” – also takes a look at the institution of marriage and gender roles.
“None of the women [in the film] have their own names, except for the fisherwoman, and she’s shunned and ostracized for being sort of ugly and smelly, and unmarriable. But she shows them,” noted Colman.
“I like the fact that they are the only equals here. They support each other, listen to each other, take care of each other. It was really about these two humans – or, again, a basket – and two souls being kind to each other. We have no same sex marriages in this story, which I just realized and that’s a shame, but they’re kind to each other and that was the important relationship in the film.”
Skarsgård added: “It commented on the patriarchy of our time and on the construct of marriage, but it was done with so much humor. And in a way that didn’t feel preachy or too on the nose.”
“It was so tender, sweet, funny and irreverent, and with a subtlety to it. That’s what really spoke to me.”
After all, it’s all about a girl, standing in front of a boy – or a basket – asking him to love her.
