Stellan Skarsgård opened up about working with Ingmar Bergman.

“My complicated relationship with Bergman has to do with him not being a nice guy. He was a nice director, but you can still denounce a person as an asshole. Caravaggio was probably an asshole but he did great paintings,” said the Swedish actor.

“Bergman was manipulative. He was a Nazi during the war and the only person I know who cried when Hitler died. We kept excusing him, but he had weird outlook on other people. He thought some people were not worthy; he was manipulating them.”

“He sees the actors he’s worked with. He’s become more skilled with each film and there’s this playfulness that’s very generous.”

In “Sentimental Value,” two sisters reunite with their estranged father, Gustav, who used to be a known director. He offers one of them a role in his comeback film.

Awarded the Grand Prix at Cannes, Sentimental Value has since become an Oscar contender.

My Oscar Book:

During a masterclass, he recalled some of the biggest films of his career, which included romancing Juliette Binoche in “The Unbearable Lightness of Being,” where she played the long-suffering partner of philandering Tomas (Daniel Day-Lewis).

“I’d seen Lars’ first films, and they were cold. They didn’t touch me. He noticed it himself, that’s why he did the whole Dogma thing. He took away his own tools. I read it: ‘Oh fuck, finally a love story I can relate to.’ It’s about the essence of love, the purity of love,” he noted.

“Lars was so shy, he didn’t like physical contact, and I hugged him. Then I let go of him and he became normal again. That was the beginning of  beautiful friendship.

I said to Helena Bonham Carter: ‘If you are smart, you’ll do it.’ And she turned it down! She didn’t want to be naked with strange Danish director she didn’t know, and strange Swedish actor she didn’t know. I saw her later at Cannes, and just looked at her. She said: I KNOW’!”

He reunited with Trier on Dancer in the Dark, featuring Björk as factory worker suffering from degenerative eye condition. She famously fell out with the director.

“I was busy and I could only do a small role, but Lars had some problems. He didn’t get along with Björk and she didn’t get along with him. They were two control freaks, used to getting what they wanted. When I finally came to the set, the producer just started crying. I knew something was wrong,” he said.

“Dogville” and “Melancholia” – with son Alexander – followed.

“I already worked with him when he was 7 years old, and with my other son Gustav. People want us to do something together – well, show me something! They don’t come up with anything good except for marketing idea,” he said about their acting clan.

“Everyone in that room knew he was not a Nazi, that he was the opposite, and yet they all used it as headline. And then people who only read headlines thought he was a Nazi. He just told a bad joke. Lars grew up with Jewish father and when his mother was dying, she told him he wasn’t his real father. It was her boss, a German,” explained the actor.

“When I meet people, especially in the U.S., they still [ask about it]. You have so many banned words over there. My kids can say any words they want – it depends on what their intention is.”

He praised von Trier for the female roles he’s written, also in the controversial “Nymphomaniac.” “He’s not a misogynist. It’s really about him–he’s the female roles.”

“I love the man, I love the work, and that doesn’t mean I agree with everything he does. You don’t agree with everything your wife does. Before ‘Nymphomaniac’ he called me: ‘My next film will be a porno. I went: ‘Ok, Lars.’ And I want you to play the lead, but we won’t show your dick until the last moment, and it will be very floppy.’”

Skarsgård started his career as a child star in popular show “Bombi Bott och jag”: “It was like Swedish Huckleberry Finn, about a wild kid living freely. My younger brother sent applications for him and me, and I got it. He was very pissed off. Everyone saw it, including 14-year-old girls. That was a positive for me,” he recalled.

He’s worked on “Good Will Hunting,” Spielberg’s “Amistad” and “Insomnia,” later remade by Christopher Nolan.

“Pirates of the Caribbean” – “Gore Verbinski poured buckets of water on me, and he enjoyed it.”

“Mamma Mia!”

He also played the ultimate villain Baron Harkonnen. “You have to know what kind of film you are working on and what’s needed of you. Big Hollywood picture where you play the bad guys? Sometimes all you have to do is just being bad, like in ‘Dune,’” he said. Recently, he was seen in Disney+ show “Andor.”

“Thankfully, I didn’t have a stroke before that huge monologue,” referencing his health issues. “I’m not totally recovered and that’s terrible: I don’t remember my lines, and I had prompter in my ear,” he said.