For Alexander Skarsgård, prep for the Met Gala starts weeks beforehand. Not physically—that doesn’t take long at all—but mentally. “I ask my family to, every time they see me, call out ‘Alex! Alex! Over here!’ to get ready for the press line. And throw out a lot of questions, like ‘Alex! Alex! What are you wearing? You look amazing!’” he says in his Nordic-meets-American twang, amusement dancing down the phone line.
He’s joking, of course. But he’s also not. Events like the Met Gala can be “quite stressful” and “intense,” says Skarsgård. There’s a lot of adrenaline. Flashing lights. Faces in every direction. So on the day of, he likes to keep things comparatively quiet: staying inside, reading a book, mooching around in silence until it’s time to get ready. After the Met Gala, to decompress, he does exactly the same thing. “It’s a lot of fun, you meet a lot of friends, a lot of people you've met throughout the years and haven’t seen in a while. But again, you’re drained. Being in a quiet hotel room on my own is quite nice a few hours beforehand and I feel the same way after.”
We’re speaking a couple of hours before the big event, and although he says that red carpets like this can be stressful, he sounds relatively relaxed, joking and laughing often (although he is an actor, so). He hasn’t gotten dressed yet—he’ll be wearing a custom double-breasted wool tuxedo by Calvin Klein, a brand he’s worked with for over a decade—with his hair styled in the way he usually wears it (no product, no shampoo for a day or two). “Because my hair’s very straight, I look like a Monchhichi doll when I wash my hair,” he says.
It was the timelessness of the tuxedo that spoke to him. After all, The Garden of Time (1962) by J.G. Ballard—the inspiration for this year's dress code—is all about the inevitable march of time, and trying to hold onto it for as long as possible. “I wanted to go for something timeless but also in my mind a throwback to James Cagney; that kind of double-breasted Hollywood look from the 1930s and 1940s. But then obviously, from Calvin Klein, it’s a slimmer silhouette with some classical components in terms of the rich wool fabric and the cut of it; the little details that I thought were really interesting.”
Did he have any other ideas ahead of the night before he landed on this one? “I felt like there are so many ways to go,” he says, that amusement creeping back into his voice. “You could go in a stone suit, because the couple obviously turned into stone at the end of the story. But we had to scrap that idea because moving in stone pants would be pretty difficult. Another version would be to go completely naked, I’m sure someone will do that on the red carpet. Because the exhibition involves a lot of very old, very fragile pieces that can’t be worn so that’s an interesting way to interpret it.” In the end, the tuxedo seemed the least extreme. “It helps to wear something that you’re very comfortable in. An emotional support outfit.”
“Everything I do, I feel like it’s gotta be for the culture,” says Domingo. “It’s gotta be more than just for me.”
His own style has always been understated and classic—and he doesn't like to buy an entirely new tux every time he attends a red carpet, never to wear it again. “The Met Gala is fun because it’s the only time of the year in which I have several fittings and wear something that’s tailor-made to me,” he says. “Normally, I have a couple of suits, one being my Calvin Klein suit from 10 years ago. I usually wear that to events. I don’t want [the situation to be that] every time you’re on the red carpet, you have to wear something new and then never wear it again. I think we consume enough in our society, that’s not something I’d want to promote or endorse.”
Despite the fact his own style is mostly understated, his favorite clothing item isn't understated at all. And he's wearing them right now: his Infinity Pool shorts, merch based on the Brandon Cronenberg film he appeared in last year. It's an insane film, one in which he plays a complicated, wildly hedonistic novelist. “They did some rare limited edition clothing and they gave me a pair of shorts and I love them. I wear them all the time. I have mixed feelings because it says ‘Infinity Pool’ all over my ass and the front is a profile of my face in neon as it's being scanned. It feels very narcissistic to walk around with a pair of shorts with the name of a movie you're in on your ass, and the front is your own face, but fortunately you can't really tell.”
Skarsgård won't be partying into the night following the Met Gala. Sure, he'll go to a few post-Gala events, but he needs to get some sleep. He'll be flying to Toronto first thing in the morning, where he's filming The Murderbot Diaries, a new sci-fi action comedy series with Apple TV+. “I play an android who has hacked his system so he’s got—or it’s got—free will, and it’s talking about going on these crazy adventures, but instead it’s watching soap operas,” he says.
“It’s been a blast for the last couple of months. I’m sure I’ll be tired going to Toronto tomorrow, but I am looking forward to it.”
This story originally appeared on British GQ with the title ‘Alexander Skarsgård on his “emotional support” tuxedo at the Met Gala 2024’