When Alexander Skarsgård sat down to chat with the Tonight Show host Jimmy Fallon Wednesday, he likely didn’t think that he would run the risk of revealing any big secrets, especially given that the late night host seemed more focused on Skarsgård’s intense on-screen stares than anything else. (Skarsgård did, in fact, win an Emmy, a Golden Globe and a SAG Award for exactly that stare.)
But about midway through the segment, Fallon pointed to reports that the Swedish actor was spotted on-set during filming of the second season of Big Little Lies, leading to speculation that he might just return for a second go-around in mystery-filled Monterey, even though — spoiler alert — his character’s death turned out to be the focal point of season one.
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“I don’t want to get in trouble,” Skarsgård warned, “Yes! I was on set. I was on set but what I did on set … maybe I was acting? I might’ve just been moral support. I might’ve made coffee for the ladies.”
Then, Skarsgård suggested the most preposterous alternate explanation possible, that he might’ve been on-set to “help Meryl Streep with her acting. Not help, but just give a few little pointers.” Okay, then.
TVLine previously reported that Skarsgård would return for the second season in some capacity (most likely in flashback sequences per Kidman’s character Celeste), though the actor himself has teased a potential plot twist in which his character Perry isn’t dead after all.
“I don’t even know if I’m really dead or not,” he told People magazine at the Golden Globes.
Streep will be joining the tight-knit cast of Big Little Lies for the upcoming season as Perry’s mother. His death and the mystery surrounding it will drive much of the second season, and according to BLL writer David E. Kelley, her character is set to be a “delicious” one.
“I felt bringing her in was both liberating and daunting,” he told The Hollywood Reporter earlier this year. “Daunting because she sets a high bar and you have to measure up, but liberating in that now the show’s not going to be compared to last year. There was freedom in that.”
Said Skarsgård of his own reverence for the show, “The cast is incredible, Jean Marc Vallée is an amazing filmmaker, the writing was very good itself. And it’s at HBO. I worked there for a couple of years, and it’s a good home for a project like this. So I was excited about it but obviously, you never know what’s gonna hit the zeitgeist or not. If people are going to embrace it or not. … You never really know.”