Alexander Skarsgård got one bloody thing from the 'The Northman' set

Alexander Skarsgård being interviewed by Stephen Colbert, looking at an image on a piece of cardboard.

Actors take all kinds of things from set — and when you're shooting a bloody Viking epic about the Nordic legend of Amleth, like Robert Eggers' The Northman, there'll be plenty of historically authentic props to choose from.

From a set that star Alexander Skarsgård described to The Late Show host Stephen Colbert as smelling like "death and faeces," he got something a little different.

"Nicole Kidman got a sword, Willem Dafoe got a longship — the whole ship," he said. "Björk got three Icelandic horses."

And what did Skarsgård get? A bloody thong.

"It wasn't a choice, It was a gift. That's how much they valued my performance, my contribution to this movie," he said. "It's the g-string that I wore. The end fight takes place on an erupting volcano and we're naked. I mean, where else would it be set? So, that's what I wore for a week, and my character's quite wounded so he's bleeding a lot profusely."

It's somewhat more dramatic than what Tom Hiddleston got from the Loki set, at least.