Bill Skarsgård’s Directorial Debut ‘Soul of a Man’ Stars His Family

After growing up in an acting dynasty, Bill Skarsgård branches out to direct his first short film, Soul of a Man. He also brought his father, Stellan, and brother, Gustaf, along for the ride. Co-written and directed by fellow actor Landon Liboiron, Soul of a Man is adapted from the Edgar Allan Poe short story “Bon-Bon,” in which a self-important Bon-Bon (Stellan Skarsgård) engages in drunken philosophical arguments with the devil (Gustaf Skarsgård).

Though Poe was American, the film is set in Paris and Skarsgård remarks that the humor is very Swedish. “Poe feels very, maybe not Scandinavian, but very European, in a strange way. Even though he was American. There’s something about that sort of Gothic narrative, and the way he spoke and wrote has sort of an ancient European feel to it,” Skarsgård said. “Poe’s version is satirical. And we wanted to kind of make it our own. A man that’s high on his own ideas meeting the devil and just refusing to listen to a word the devil says. That was the setup. And then we made it into our version of what this philosophical conversation could have looked like.”

That dark sense of humor is what brought co-directors Skarsgård and Liboiron together while starring in Netflix’s horror series Hemlock Grove. He remarked how “He and I would be laughing hysterically in the movie theater, when the whole theater’s silent.” Naturally, it would seem intimidating for a first-time director to work with the legendary Stellan Skarsgård, but for Bill, it was a fun experience collaborating with his family.

“Directing, to me, I think is more of a conversation than anything else. It’s not like, ‘You have to do this. You have to do that.’ You just go, ‘Oh, here’s what I think it is.’ And then they have opinions and you kind of explore it together,” said Skarsgård. “So the process never felt weird to me because directing them was basically like having dinner with them. You just talk about things. Sometimes you don’t agree on things, but it’s always fun and you learn from it. So it did feel very natural doing it.”

IndieWire is distributing Soul of a Man exclusively. Watch the short film below.