Alexander Skarsgård may be known to many as “the guy who takes his shirt off” but the Northman actor is also, on occasion, the guy who takes his pants off. If you’ve ever been to the actor’s IMDb page, you’ve noticed his official profile pic is of him wearing a tuxedo from the waist up, but no pants. Skarsgård recently spoke about how that came about, and he says the whole thing was Zac Efron’s fault.
Speaking with IMDb, Alexander Skarsgård reveals that the picture came from an appearance at the MTV Movie Awards back when he was promoting The Legend of Tarzan which certainly had the actor in great shape. He was appearing with his Tarzan co-star Samuel L. Jackson, and he appeared on stage without pants. He looked like this.
It seems the reason he decided to do this was that he was trying to "out sexy" Zac Efron. The year before, Zac Efron had appeared at the same show shirtless, and so the man playing Tarzan wanted to take things to the next level. Skarsgård explains...
A couple years ago when we were promoting Tarzan, Samuel Jackson and I went to the… MTV Movie Awards. The year before Zac Efron had taken his shirt off… he is so sexy. I decided to also show a little bit of skin. I couldn’t take my shirt off because Zac had already done that, so I thought “well I’ll take my pants off, because it’s equally sexy.
Alexander Skarsgård is, of course, having a bit of fun by saying that it's "equally sexy." He knows that's not necessarily the case. I mean, the man has pretty nice legs, so I'm sure there were some people in the audience who appreciated that.
Of course, when you're following shirtless Zac Efron, it's just tough. And Alexander Skarsgård is one of the people who honestly might compete with Efron shirtless. Here's the picture that we're talking about.
Not unlike Alexander Skarsgård, Zac Efron spends a decent amount of his time with his shirt off. He's usually looking like he's in ridiculous shape. Having said that, even Efron has said that sometimes his physique is a bit unrealisitic. And Efron isn't quite like his Baywatch co-star Dwayne Johnson. Sometimes you will see Efron with a more "normal" body.
Alexander Skarsgård was going to have to look pretty amazing with his pants off to compete with that. Still, he's getting some pretty great milage out of his pantsless pic by using it on his IMDb profile. Any time you want to remember when the actor looks like without pants, the option is available to you. And considering how many celebrities, from Halle Berry to Alexandra Daddario, have embraced the pants-free life, really Skarsgård was just ahead of his time.
