The actor, 68, on dreaming of being a diplomat, smashing telephones with skill and the days before Marvel ruled the world
![Stellan Skarsgård: ‘I don’t give advice to my children’](https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/1cb4cecc6767b5cb31da33f6b3ae884fb406176e/562_819_3005_1803/master/3005.jpg?width=1200&height=630&quality=85&auto=format&fit=crop&overlay-align=bottom%2Cleft&overlay-width=100p&overlay-base64=L2ltZy9zdGF0aWMvb3ZlcmxheXMvdG8tZGVmYXVsdC5wbmc&enable=upscale&s=bc962eeadc3c5bd5a5274893113e0122)
I intended to become a diplomat. That was my dream. I didn’t take acting seriously until I was 16 and got a role in a Swedish show that made me extremely famous right away. There were screaming girls, all that stuff. I’d never had any girl take an interest in me before that. Suddenly being a diplomat didn’t seem half as attractive as it had done.
My heroes growing up were politicians. The main one was Dag Hammarskjöld, a Swedish politician who was the secretary general of the United Nations. He was a real hero for peace to many of my generation. I idolised him.