In a series littered with problematic characters, it's hard for someone to come along and knock them all out of the park in terms of weirdness. However, Alexander Skarsgard's character Lukas Matsson has really taken the biscuit this season.
When he first appeared in season 3, Matsson comes across as your typical young tech billionaire with not much to him but a creepy vibe. However the more he features, the stranger he gets. In this week's episode he goes off the weirdness charts and it's clear to see this is a man with many a skeleton in his closet.
Not only does he freeze litres of his blood to send to his ex-girlfriend (who just so happens to be his head of comms), but Greg also did some digging to find out that he wears noise-cancelling headphones and listens to podcasts while having sex with strangers.
https://twitter.com/HBO/status/1650520106563252225?s=20
If you heard that and thought it was an oddly-specific kink, maybe a bit too specific, then you would be right. It turns out that it's apparently based off the longstanding rumour about a real-life celeb: none other than Leonardo DiCaprio.
First hitting the rumour mill in 2016, in OK! Magazine (which you can read about in this Jezebel article), the headline ran “LEO HOLLYWOOD’S LAZIEST LOVER!”
The article goes on to describe a “romp” someone had with Leo where, in the middle of the act, Leo “reached for his vaporizer and a pair of noise-canceling headphones, laid back and closed his eyes and signaled for her to keep going.”
Not strange or unnerving behaviour at all, I'm sure we can all agree.
Who is Lukas Matsson based off?
https://twitter.com/succession/status/1650318657493561345
It's clear to see that the character of Matsson himself is not based off one person, but rather is an amalgamation of multiple tech billionaires, actors and celebrities.
One could jump to Daniel Ek, the Swedish billionaire who founded Spotify, as there's a lot of surface level similarities there. However, it's clear to see his odd behaviour is based on other people, potentially including DiCaprio, Elon Musk and Mark Zuckerberg.
Ultimately, Lukas Mattson has crafted his own path of weirdness all by himself, and we're very glad he doesn't exist in real life.
We can't wait to see what new quirks he'll bring in the next episode, which will be available to watch in Ireland and the UK from 2am on Monday, 1 May.
Check out HBO's teaser of the next episode below.
