In ‘Sentimental Value,’ Stellan Skarsgård could’ve sought revenge. Instead, he could be looking at an Oscar

In taking on the role of a filmmaker in his latest movie, Stellan Skarsgård sniffed a chance at payback.

“I mean, what an opportunity for revenge,” the Swedish actor said, his eyes lighting up.

Sprinkle an idiosyncrasy here, a mannerism there, soaked up from seven decades on set. Few, if any, other actor can say they’ve worked with as iconic and eclectic a range of directors as Steven Spielberg, Lars von Trier, Denis Villeneuve and Ingmar Bergman, after all. But no, he clarified; if there was anything in his performance pulled from real life, it was “probably unconscious.”

Skarsgård was concentrating on a bigger question: Who was Gustav Borg, the Scandi auteur and catalyst of the Cannes-winning family drama, “Sentimental Value”? The character was, Skarsgård decided, more than a dir