Few actors can boast being father to as many noteworthy stars as Stellan Skarsgard, who counts Alexander Skarsgard and Bill Alexander Skarsgard as among his eight children, along with Swedish actors Gustaf, Valter, Ossian and Kolbjörn.

His real-life fathering may have helped inform his work in Sentimental Value, he said as he accepted the supporting actor in a motion picture award at the 2026 Golden Globes.

“My children have been very educational. I’m playing a father who is a bad father there. And my children have really told me what a bad father is,” deadpanned the actor, who previously won a Globe for HBO’s Chernobyl.

He stars as a director who has a fraught relationship with his daughters, played by Renate Reinsve and Inga Ibsdotter Lilleaas in Joachim Trier’s film.

He also used his speech to tout the sanctity of movie theaters at a time in which box office has never recovered from the COVID-19 pandemic and streaming service Netflix is in pole position to acquire Warner Bros.

“It’s a small Norwegian film with no money for advertising or anything,” he said. “Hopefully, you see it in a cinema, because they are an extinguished species now. In a cinema, the lights go down and eventually you share the pulse with some other people cinema.”

Other men in contention for the Globe Sunday night were Benicio Del Toro (One Battle After Another), Jacob Elordi (Frankenstein), Paul Mescal (Hamnet), Sean Penn (_One Battle After Anothe_r) and
Adam Sandler (Jay Kelly).

Golden Globes producer Dick Clark Productions is owned by Penske Media Eldridge, a joint venture between Penske Media Corporation and Eldridge that also owns The Hollywood Reporter.

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