Gustaf Skarsgård.com

That is, not he, but his role character, Tom Goldman, chief administrative officer at the Royal Library. One might otherwise think that he was head of the City of Stockholm’s sports management, since it is sports administration which in reality is in the stylish rooms on Fleming Street that was once the headquarters AB separators.

There are ongoing recording of Library thief, a drama in three episodes to be aired on SVT in sometime late this year or early next.

- “It’s not a docudrama, nor is it a drama that is based on a true story, it is a drama inspired by a true story,” stresses director Daniel Lind Lagerlof, who is careful distinctions.

The events that gave inspiration is bokstölderna revealed at the Royal Library 2004. The thief turned out to be one of the library’s own, a trusted official who blew himself and his dwelling in the air when he had uncovered. It was reported extensively in the news media when it went, and throughout history have also been incorporated in longer stories, including an award-winning radio documentary last year.

But that is something else that Daniel Lind Lagerlof and writer Malin Lagerlof are looking for.

Reality-sounds themselves are almost never fully told, “said Daniel Lind Lagerlof when we talk for a very late lunch break.

-In the drama, however, you can build up tension and connecting the events to a real story. In fact remains many questions unanswered, as the question “why” in the case of library thief, but where the drama can provide answers. The opportunities to experiment is much larger, it’s a completely different approach.

-We have taken on the external events in history, but facts alone are not sufficient for a three-hour drama, it would be uninteresting.

And Gustaf Skarsgard, who plays the thief himself – John Manéus born Jackson – a documentary out that also requires an entirely different type of responsibility, greater fidelity in the details and more by taking into account the people involved. Consequently, he has not read up on what is known about the real library thief.

-No, no, I relate to the role myself only figure who is an entirely fictional character, then I can also feel free when I do my reading, “he says.

Gustaf Skarsgårds John is a man who comes from a modest background, and there are economic problems that causes him to start stealing books at his workplace and then resell them abroad for millions and get rich in obscurity.

-He’s a man who has not had it easy, he has had to work as a barrier guard to make ends meet. He is driven partly by admiration for the successful, and the bitterness. He carries a tremendous desire revenge.

Reuben Sallmander plays one of John’s immediate superiors, an old classmate who comes from a much more wealthy social class and that it also has done well in life.

-My role-figure acts as a projection screen for John. Tom Goldman is all that John would like to be, “said Reuben Sallmander, and points out that it is no coincidence that the two have the same glasses at the scene that has just been recorded – John do not really need glasses at all.

-That’s the way a key scene. I, that is, Tom, is very keen to spend the anniversary in which the script, but could not afford. But since there has emerged an anonymous donor …

-And of course it is I, “says Gustaf Skarsgård contentedly.

Daniel Lind Lagerlof envisages Library thief first and foremost a story about class.

-If the class for real, nuanced, and without stencils, “he explains.
And so he immerses himself and the actors in a discussion about the more existential questions that the story raises, if they want to be someone other than you really are, about being in a world where you do not belong, to take small liberties , make the small deviations from the norm and convention, which some – but not all – can afford but it will sour after, to climb over fences at times, as Reuben Sallmander puts it.

“But the most serious offense committed, as John says Gustaf Skarsgård, there is still that he is compromising on family and children for the sake of social climbing, he projected his own self-loathing of those who truly love him. It is much worse than bokstölderna, I think.

The late lunch break is over, and it is time to go back to the borrowed office space in Separatorhuset and continue recording. Time and again, they do their scenes in front of the camera, until midsummer, when the filming will be completed.

“It’s actually film it here, not video. This puts a bit more demanding, and it provides extra nervous about recording, “says Gustaf Skarsgård.