Wicker: Skarsgard's Viral Woven Husband Breaks the Internet

Some costumes get applause. Alexander Skarsgard's got the internet. The Swedish actor told AFP this week that he could hardly wait to become the plaited fantasy husband at the centre of Wicker — and then, when the time came to wear the intricately detailed suit, his immediate reaction was "panic and claustrophobia." The suit, he said, "was quite heavy and warm and glued to my face a little. I couldn't really take it off at all during the day." That costume, and the film around it, has since sent the internet into a frenzy, which is exactly what a strange little fantasy romance needs the week it opens.

Wicker, now playing in US theaters, is based on The Wicker Husband, a short story by British author Ursula Wills-Jones. Skarsgard stars opposite Olivia Colman, who plays a fisherwoman in a medieval, patriarchal village where residents are known by their professions. For the fisherwoman, it is a hostile place. She is an outcast for being independent, with no man supporting her — and, as the film bluntly puts it, for smelling like fish.

The suit that broke the internet

So she defiantly asks the basket weaver, played by Peter Dinklage, to create a husband for her. A month later, Skarsgard's character appears — a tall, carefully woven dream of a spouse. His housework, and his bedroom skills, are quickly the talk of the town. The men are resentful because they can never match up, and the women are jealous. That is the whole joke and the whole point, running at the same time.

The film was written and directed by Alex Huston Fischer and Eleanor Wilson, the filmmakers behind Save Yourselves!, and it premiered to strong reviews at the 2026 Sundance Film Festival in January. The cast around the central couple includes Elizabeth Debicki as the bitter Tailor's Wife, plus Richard E. Grant, Marli Siu and Nabhaan Rizwan. The Wicker Husband himself was brought to life through practical effects — Skarsgard wore a specially made suit built by Weta, not a CGI creation, which is why the costume photographs like something you could actually touch.

Skarsgard admitted at Sundance that the role scared him for a different reason than the suit. "I was quite intimidated when I read [the script] because I tend to be drawn toward more conflicted characters with more internal turmoil and darkness," he said. "To play this good-hearted, good-natured, sweet, morally righteous character was scary to me. I'm not really comfortable doing that. I don't have anything to tap into when it comes to that. So it was a stretch as an actor." Colman, meanwhile, said her main attraction was that her character refuses to fit in. "She is the only one not toeing the line," she said.

Can viral buzz become ticket sales?

Context matters here. Wicker opened in select US theaters on October 23, 2026, through Black Bear, and expands nationwide on October 30, 2026. That rollout is a bet: a limited opening that lets word of mouth, and one very photographable costume, do the work before the wide release. The final trailer, released days ago, leans into the same idea — the wicker construction plainly visible, but so is the couple's closeness.

The honest answer: viral costumes do not guarantee box office. But they do guarantee something almost as valuable in 2026, which is that people who would never watch a medieval fantasy romance now know this movie exists. Directors Fischer and Wilson have said the movie can be enjoyed at surface level as a fun spectacle, while underneath it has a lot going on that feels modern and relatable. That is a generous way of describing a film about a village that punishes a woman for independence, then loses its mind when she finds happiness anyway.

My take: the reason this is working is not the strangeness. It is the sincerity. A joke costume in a cynical movie would have been a meme for a day. A joke costume in a movie that clearly believes in its own love story becomes a conversation. October 30 will show whether the conversation converts.

Related: Sense and Sensibility 2026: Best Austen Opening Ever — another 2026 literary adaptation finding its audience.