Alexander Skarsgård has a familiar ritual with Iceland: every single year, he flies in to hike with a group of Icelandic friends across different parts of the country. What he didn't expect this time was an award. The Swedish actor was honoured by the Reykjavík International Film Festival (RIFF) at Háskólabíó on a Tuesday evening, timed to the Nordic premiere of his new film Wicker. He says the honour was a complete surprise — but that attending the festival, his first, was already a priority.

It's easy to see why he keeps coming back. The Emmy and Golden Globe winner, known for Generation Kill, True Blood, Big Little Lies and Succession, previously shot The Northman partly in Iceland — in a hiking area he already knew well, about two hours from Reykjavík — and before that spent weeks filming the British movie War on Everyone there. He describes the Icelandic film crews as excellent but notably less hierarchical than their Hollywood counterparts, saying the atmosphere feels closer to Sweden. "It feels more like people are helping each other," he said.

Wicker itself is an odd, playful thing. Based on Ursula Wills-Jones's short story The Wicker Husband, it's a satirical love story with a medieval look: an unmarried fisherwoman, mocked by her village, commissions a basketmaker to build her a husband out of wicker. Skarsgård plays that husband, opposite Olivia Colman. The film pokes at patriarchal village life — women there are known only as the tailor's wife or the butcher's wife — and the uproar when the lowest-status woman ends up in the most passionate marriage. Skarsgård praised the script's mix of social commentary and humour, calling it irresistible.

There's a practical-effects story too, and it's very Iceland-meets-New Zealand: rather than creating the character with CGI, the production had Wētā Workshop — the studio behind The Lord of the Rings creatures — build the wicker costume for real. Getting Skarsgård into it took nearly two hours at best, with sunlight through the wicker the only visual effect added in post.

For travellers, the story is a nice reminder of how tightly Iceland's film world and outdoors culture intertwine. The same trails Skarsgård hikes each year pass through the volcanic terrain that stood in for the Viking world of The Northman, and Reykjavík's film festival, held each autumn, is a genuine draw — a compact, relaxed festival in a walkable capital where you might spot a movie star at a hotel bar. Skarsgård himself stayed at the Edition downtown. If his recurring hiking trips say anything, it's that Iceland rewards repeat visits: a small, welcoming place where locals and visitors end up on the same trail.

For film fans and hikers alike, Skarsgård's annual pilgrimage is a fitting endorsement of the country's enduring appeal.