Avengers Star Calls Ingmar Bergman a Master Manipulator Who Made Careers Vanish

Stellan Skarsgard is not tiptoeing around Ingmar Bergman. The 74-year-old Avengers and Mamma Mia! star just gave a blunt read on the legendary director, and it opens back up a very old, very messy conversation about the power Bergman wielded in Swedish theater and film - and how he used it.

What Skarsgard actually said (and why he can say it)

In a new interview, Skarsgard says Bergman was not an on-set puppet master, but he was highly manipulative away from the camera. According to Skarsgard, Bergman quietly pulled strings: pushing allies into jobs, pushing enemies out, and deciding whose careers rose or vanished. This is not Skarsgard taking potshots from afar, either. He worked with Bergman on stage and TV in the 80s - including a 1986 production of August Strindberg's A Dream Play and a 1983 TV version of Moliere's The School for Wives - and he still respects the work, even while calling out the behavior.

Did others back this up? A lot of people did

Jane Magnusson, who made the 2018 doc Bergman: A Year in a Life, lays out a pattern: as Bergman got older, his temper got worse, and the Royal Dramatic Theatre in Stockholm let it slide because audiences kept showing up. One flashpoint: the 1995 production of The Misanthrope. Actor-director Thorsten Flinck starred, then became the scapegoat for colleagues skipping out, and Bergman reportedly hammered him to the point critics later described as psychological torture.

There are uglier anecdotes. A clip that circulates now and then on social media alleges Bergman threatened Roy Andersson and other film students with getting blacklisted if they kept making left-leaning films. Ingrid Bergman - who delivered her final screen performance in Autumn Sonata - was so furious at his demands at one point that she slapped him. And back in 1983, producer Jorn Donner (Fanny and Alexander) told the New York Times that Bergman had the kind of reach in Sweden where he would tell people what they should and should not do, and careers rose or fell accordingly.

Bergman himself was not blind to his darker side. In 1983, he told the New York Times Magazine:

'I am very much aware of my own double self. The well-known one is very under control; everything is planned and very secure. The unknown one can be very unpleasant. I think this side is responsible for all the creative work - he is in touch with the child.'

Skarsgard's recent comments have also been framed in coverage as extremely harsh - including a recap that characterized him as calling Bergman a Nazi and saying he was the only person who cried when Hitler died. However you slice the wording, Bergman's early-life flirtation with authoritarian ideas is documented, and the older he got, the more he seemed to wrestle with control, mortality, and the need to keep everyone orbiting his vision. He mixed romance and work constantly, and actors were drawn to him - sometimes at heavy personal cost.

Skarsgard's bottom line

'Artists are complicated people. You can be a great artist and still be an asshole. But that does not mean you cannot make great work.'

The work that made him a giant

Between 1951 and 1982, Bergman directed over 60 films and TV projects that changed how filmmakers handle psychology, faith, and existential dread. If you want a quick map of the big ones and why they still matter, here you go:

• 1957 - The Seventh Seal (Det sjunde inseglet): Faith, death, existentialism. Max von Sydow, Gunnar Bjornstrand, Bengt Ekerot. Cemented the icon of Death playing chess and became a pillar of existential cinema; influenced everyone from Woody Allen to Tarkovsky.
• 1957 - Wild Strawberries (Smultronstallet): Memory, regret, aging. Victor Sjostrom, Bibi Andersson, Ingrid Thulin. Uses dreamlike flashbacks to confront a lifetime of choices; an early landmark in the philosophical road-movie lane.
• 1960 - The Virgin Spring (Jungfrukallan): Revenge, faith, sexual violence. Max von Sydow, Birgitta Pettersson. Won the Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film; inspired Wes Craven's The Last House on the Left.
• 1961 - Through a Glass Darkly (Sasom i en spegel): Faith, madness, isolation. Harriet Andersson, Gunnar Bjornstrand, Max von Sydow. Kicks off the Faith Trilogy; probes spiritual despair through mental illness; won the Oscar for Best Foreign Film.
• 1962 - Winter Light (Nattvardsgasterna): Loss of faith, the silence of God. Gunnar Bjornstrand, Ingrid Thulin, Gunnel Lindblom. The middle of the Faith Trilogy; famed for its stripped-down minimalism and blunt existential dialogue.
• 1963 - The Silence (Tystnaden): Sexual repression, alienation. Ingrid Thulin, Gunnel Lindblom. Closes the Faith Trilogy; pushed psychological intensity and eroticism far enough to trip censors worldwide.
• 1966 - Persona: Identity, duality, the female psyche. Liv Ullmann, Bibi Andersson. Often called his masterpiece; a cornerstone of modernist cinema that deeply influenced David Lynch and Robert Altman.
• 1968 - Shame (Skammen): War, guilt, moral collapse. Liv Ullmann, Max von Sydow. Personal and political apocalypse rolled into one; marks a shift toward darker, more symbolic realism.
• 1972 - Cries and Whispers (Viskningar och rop): Death, suffering, sisterhood. Liv Ullmann, Harriet Andersson, Ingrid Thulin. Famous for its saturated red palette and raw, almost surgical emotional intensity.
• 1973 - Scenes from a Marriage (Scener ur ett aktenskap): Marriage, emotional decay. Liv Ullmann, Erland Josephson. Redefined how film and TV dissect relationships; a clear ancestor to Marriage Story.
• 1978 - Autumn Sonata (Hostsonaten): Mother-daughter conflict. Ingrid Bergman, Liv Ullmann. Welds Bergman's psychological rigor to Ingrid Bergman's final screen role; often read through a feminist lens of maternal guilt.
• 1982 - Fanny and Alexander: Family, faith, fantasy, childhood trauma. Pernilla Allwin, Bertil Guve, Borje Ahlstedt. The late-career capstone - an epic about theater, imagination, cruelty, and grace; won four Oscars, including Best Foreign Film.

The eternal asterisk

Bergman died at 89, leaving a body of work that is basically film school in a box: fearless about psychological darkness, technically exact, and allergic to easy answers. The artistry is undeniable, and so are the stories about how he treated people. Both things can be true at once.

Where to watch

In the U.S., you can find Bergman films on Max (formerly HBO Max), MUBI, and Kanopy.

What is your favorite Bergman film? Tell me in the comments. I am always curious which one gets people first: the chess game, the screams, or the silence.