Alexander Skarsgård was given a blood-soaked Viking g-string as a Northman set souvenir

Many actors are lucky enough to leave film and TV sets with wonderful artifacts from the project they’ve worked on. Henry Winkler, for example, owns complete Fonzie outfits and a Scream mask. Russell Crowe left Gladiator with stunt swords, life-size prop horses, and an actual replica Roman chariot that he later parted with to help pay for a divorce.

Alexander Skarsgård, star of the most recent movie from a director well known for creating painstakingly detailed props and sets, finished up The Northman with a pair of bloody underwear as a keepsake.

During an interview with Stephen Colbert on last night’s episode of The Late Show, Skarsgård discussed his time working on the movie. There’s a conversation about being part of a cast that was “wet and muddy and bloody for seven months” of shooting. There’s talk about Nordic names and acting on sets that were both as authentic as possible to the 9th century setting and smelled like “death and feces”—the latter from horses, thankfully.

And then Colbert asks about which souvenirs the cast were given from the set.

Skarsgård explains that Nicole Kidman got a sword and, as far as he remembers, Willem Dafoe received a longship. Björk, he says, was given “three Icelandic horses.” And Skarsgård, who plays the film’s protagonist, got a blood-soaked g-string.

“It wasn’t a choice, it was a gift,” he says. “That’s how much they valued my performance and my contribution to this movie.”

To be fair, the bloody thong was worn during a climatic scene of mortal combat atop an erupting volcano, so it’s not just any old gore-covered scrap of underwear. And, really, as far as movie props that will definitely increase in value over time go, a nasty, bloody g-string worn for a week of shoots by Alexander Skarsgård is sure to be a much sought-after collector’s items in the near future.

[via Mashable]

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