Olivia Colman long gray curls were part of the conversation at the Zurich Film Festival, where she said she had never read anything like the Wicker script before. She also called it one of her top three scripts and said the only way to sell the film is with a picture of Alexander Skarsgård as “a very sexy basket.”
Olivia Colman at Zurich
“I’ve never read anything like it before. It’s in my top three scripts that I’ve loved and I’ve done,” Colman said at the Zurich Film Festival. She added, “It’s beautiful, funny and original. And yes, the only way you can sell it is by having a picture of Alex as a very sexy basket.”
Wicker arrives at Zurich after premiering at Sundance, where it began drawing attention for its erotic scenes. The European premiere kept the focus on the script and the film’s odd, highly specific pitch rather than on a conventional awards-style rollout.
Alexander Skarsgård and Wētā Workshop
Alexander Skarsgård said the role was frightening because he feels more comfortable playing “dark, twisted, demented characters.” He also said the wicker husband was built by Wētā Workshop and that the team wanted practical effects, not a CGI version.
“It was glued to my face! It was crucial that [the mask] would move with my facial movements so that it wouldn’t be completely flattened, but that meant I had to exaggerate them,” he said. He added that normal movement would not register on camera, which meant the performance depended on body control as much as dialogue.
Wicker's unusual setup
In Wicker, Colman plays a medieval fisherwoman who is constantly ostracized until she marries a wicker husband, while Peter Dinklage plays the basket weaver who creates him. Alex Huston Fischer and Eleanor Wilson directed the film, which is adapted from Ursula Wills-Jones’s The Wicker Husband.
That setup gives the film its selling point and its complication at once: it is being framed as beautiful, funny and original, yet the raunchiness and erotic scenes have surprised some unsuspecting viewers. The practical build, the mask work, and Skarsgård’s exaggerated movement turn that premise into something physical rather than a simple digital trick, and that is what gives the film its edge.
Colman said she and Skarsgård “got on very well, and giggled a lot,” which fits a film built around a strange premise but played with straight faces. For now, the strongest read is that Wicker is selling on concept, craft, and performance rather than on familiarity, and that is exactly why Zurich kept the conversation going.
