Olivia Colman & Alexander Skarsgård Shine at Wicker Premiere in Zurich

Zurich has its own red carpet tradition, and Monday night belonged to two of acting’s most beloved faces. Olivia Colman and Alexander Skarsgård stepped onto the green carpet at the 2026 Zurich Film Festival for the premiere of their new romantic fantasy comedy Wicker — and honestly, they looked like they were having the time of their lives.

The Oscar-winning actress, 52, and the Emmy-winning actor, 50, posed side by side for photographers before the screening on September 28 in Zurich, Switzerland. It was the kind of premiere moment festivals dream about: two genuinely great actors, a genuinely bonkers-sounding movie, and a carpet full of people who had absolutely no idea what to expect.

Colman showed up in a white outfit with her longest hair in years — a proper style moment — while Skarsgård kept it sharp in a black suit over a white T-shirt. No bow ties, no fuss. Just two stars who clearly enjoy each other’s company and weren’t afraid to show it.

What on earth is Wicker about?

Okay, buckle up, because this plot summary is not the kind of thing you read every day.

Wicker is directed by Alex Huston Fischer and Eleanor Wilson, and it’s billed as an audacious comedic fable about sex, marriage, and the absurdities of social convention. Colman plays an ostracized fisherwoman who — fed up with village life and romance — commissions the local basketmaker (played by Peter Dinklage) to build her a husband. Out of wicker. Yes, really.

The wicker husband in question is played by Skarsgård, and he turns out to be far more spectacular than his creator ever bargained for. His soulful spirit and, shall we say, unique prowess awaken something in Colman’s character, setting off a ripple of jealousy, fascination, and upheaval that threatens to unravel the very fabric of village life.

It’s the sort of premise that either collapses under its own weight or becomes an instant cult classic. Early buzz suggests the cast is leaning fully into the second option.

Wicker nipples and other acting challenges

Skarsgård has been wonderfully unguarded about what it took to play a man made of woven reeds. In comments shared with Entertainment Weekly, he joked that while most male actors dream of playing Hamlet at some point in their careers, that was never his ambition.

His dream, he said, was to have nipples made out of wicker. Thanks to the directors and the prosthetics artists at Weta in New Zealand, that dream finally came true.

You can’t not love an actor who commits that hard to the bit.

Colman, for her part, has called the film one of the best and most original scripts she’d read in a long time. She also had some extremely sweet things to say about her leading man, describing him as funny, intelligent, and beautiful — and, she added, breathtaking in the wicker costume.

“Everything is exaggerated; he’s a work of art,” she said of Skarsgård’s performance. “Alex fills the Wicker Husband with a beautiful soul.”

Coming from one of the most naturally gifted comic actors working today, that kind of praise carries real weight. Colman doesn’t hand out compliments lightly — and she certainly doesn’t sign on to movies she doesn’t believe in. If she’s this enthusiastic, it’s worth paying attention.

Two of the very best, at the top of their game

It’s easy to forget how remarkable this pairing is until you actually stop and list what these two have done.

Colman remains one of the most decorated performers of her generation. She won the Academy Award for Best Actress for The Favourite in 2019, stealing every scene she was in as a mercurial Queen Anne, and earned a second Oscar nomination for The Lost Daughter. Before Hollywood came calling, she was already a national treasure in Britain — Broadchurch, The Night Manager, Fleabag, Peep Show — and then she went and played Queen Elizabeth II in The Crown for good measure.

What sets her apart is range, sure, but also something rarer: warmth. Audiences root for Colman the way they root for almost no one else. She can break your heart in one scene and have you crying with laughter in the next, sometimes in the same minute.

Skarsgård’s résumé is nothing to sneeze at either. He spent years as the smoldering, scene-stealing vampire Eric Northman on True Blood, then pivoted hard into prestige drama — winning an Emmy for his chilling turn as an abusive husband in Big Little Lies and an even bigger audience as the feral tech-bro Lukas Matsson in Succession. He went full Viking warrior for Robert Eggers’ The Northman and has spent the last few years picking projects that are interesting rather than safe.

Wicker might be the most interesting choice of the lot. A romantic fantasy comedy about a woman who marries a man made of basket weaving is not a career move you make for the paycheck — it’s a move you make because the script made you laugh out loud and you couldn’t stop thinking about it.

Zurich is having a moment

The Zurich Film Festival has quietly become one of the most important stops on the autumn festival circuit, a bridge between the Venice–Telluride–Toronto gauntlet and the year-end awards season. Landing a world-buzz premiere like Wicker is a coup for the festival, and the green carpet turnout reflected that.

Festival premieres are funny things. They’re equal parts celebration and audition — the filmmakers watching the room, the room watching the film, everyone trying to figure out whether they’ve just seen the next big thing. For a movie as high-concept as this one, the Zurich audience was about as good a test as any. European festival crowds are famously honest. If they didn’t like it, you’d know.

The stars, at least, looked entirely unbothered by any of that pressure. The photos from the night show two actors completely at ease — laughing, posing, and genuinely enjoying the absurdity of promoting a movie about a wicker husband at a serious film festival in Switzerland.

When can you actually see it?

Here’s the good news: you won’t have to wait long. Wicker arrives in select theaters on October 23, with a wider release following on October 30 — just in time for Halloween-adjacent moviegoing, which feels oddly perfect for a film this strange.

The first trailer is already out and, by all accounts, it’s appropriately wild. If the footage is anything like the premise suggests, we’re in for something genuinely one-of-a-kind — the rare studio-adjacent comedy that’s willing to be completely, gloriously weird.

And honestly? October could use it. The fall release calendar is packed with earnest awards contenders and franchise installments. A romantic fantasy comedy about a fisherwoman who falls for a man woven from reeds might be exactly the jolt of originality the season needs.

Why this one matters

Big swings are getting rarer in modern movies. The middle of the industry — original stories, strange premises, films that exist because someone had an idea they couldn’t shake — keeps getting squeezed. So when two A-list actors throw their weight behind something as gloriously odd as Wicker, it’s worth celebrating.

Colman and Skarsgård could have spent the fall promoting a safe biopic or a franchise entry. Instead they’re in Zurich, grinning on a green carpet, talking about wicker prosthetics and beautiful souls. There’s something genuinely joyful about that — a reminder that movies can still surprise us, still be playful, still take risks on the weird stuff.

October 23 can’t come soon enough.

Source: Just Jared