Alexander Skarsgård changes tack in The Hummingbird Project

Alexander Skarsgård is known for playing roles such as Tarzan, vampire Eric Northman in True Blood and his Emmy and Golden Globe-winning turn as the charming yet horrifically violent Perry Wright on Big Little Lies.

In his new film The Hummingbird Project, Skarsgård changes tack. He plays a hunched over, socially anxious coder named Anton, who tries to beat the financial system.

The film is an unlikely thriller about two cousins who try to get rich by laying thousands of miles of fibre optic cables between Kansas and New Jersey — a big operation that gives them a millisecond edge on every transaction at the New York Stock Exchange.

The Hummingbird Project opens on March 22 in theatres, but it premiered last year at the Toronto International Film Festival. That's where Skarsgård sat down with q host Tom Power to talk about the film, what attracted him to this role and what it was like to shed his image as a sex symbol.

— Produced by Ben Edwards