How long has this been Alexander Skarsgård’s IMDb photo?

Upon researching The Stand last weekend, we came across the IMDb page for Alexander Skarsgård, where the actor is wearing a tuxedo with no pants in his main profile photo. Unfortunately, most people probably know Alexander Skarsgård from True Blood, HBO’s vampire show that ran from 2008 to 2014. However, Skarsgård has done some of his greatest work recently, notably in Big Little Lies, which earned him an Emmy and Golden Globe, and The Stand, which was recently added to Amazon Prime.

In the photo in question, Skarsgård’s facial expression doesn’t exactly convey the goofiness of being pantsless, so it’s not even that odd at first glance. However we were curious as to how long this has been the Swedish actor’s IMDb photo.

While at first we thought it could be a prank, an actor as well-known as Alexander Skarsgård would absolutely have claimed his IMDb page by now, giving him (or his people) control over the information and photos on it. Therefore it’s clearly intentional. It turns out that people have been speculating about this photo on social media for months — since August 2020, to be exact.

While the photo was taken at the MTV Movie Awards in 2016 (by photographer Larry Busacca), the first mention of it as Alexander Skarsgård’s IMDb photo appears to be on Aug. 30, 2020 via Twitter.

Why is this Alexander Skarsgård’s picture on IMDb??? ???????????? pic.twitter.com/NH6EhrB4cr

— David Alkhed (@DAlkhed) August 30, 2020

Since then, numerous other people have posted about the photo. Here are some of the posts that caught our eye.

OF COURSE this is Alexander Skarsgard's main IMDb photo ???? pic.twitter.com/hJ4YcPWoqC

— Dave Trumbore (@DrClawMD) December 10, 2020

we don’t talk enough about alexander skarsgard’s IMDb picture pic.twitter.com/ZaFQvNaVTQ

— вероника (@thenyjew) March 14, 2021

alexander skarsgard has an unhinged IMDb photo pic.twitter.com/UzSB9VIGRa

— chubby olive oyl ???? (@jssckr) March 21, 2021

Lmao why is this Alexander Skarsgård’s IMDb photo pic.twitter.com/axeHh36qIM

— Cody Dericks (@codymonster91) March 5, 2021

Commercial for The Stand came on, the first I’ve seen. One of the voices sounded like Alexander Skarsgård, so I went to @IMDb to confirm. His profile pic looked like he wasn’t wearing pants.

He’s not.

It made my night. I love people who don’t take themselves too seriously. pic.twitter.com/GRxKYT9PV0

— Corey J Esser (@corey_esser) December 14, 2020

I could ask why this is Alexander Skarsgård's main photo on IMDb, but I ain't that mad. pic.twitter.com/JZCxT5SGdu

— Wendy Mays (@meowmays) February 23, 2021

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