Alexander Skarsgard: 'My Tarzan stunt double deserves a lot more credit'

Alexander Skarsgard fears he's getting too much credit as Hollywood's new Tarzan, because he has an acrobat to thank for his character's moves and a singer for the ape man's iconic cry.

The movie hunk reveals he had to sit and watch his aerial stunt double Augusts Dakteris wow as the fictional lord of the jungle - and then his face and body were added by special effects boffins.

"They had a 3D scanned version of my body and one of the greatest trapeze artists in the world came in, who was very short," Alexander tells WENN. "It was like a circus. We sat there with our coffees watching Augusts doing these amazing stunts.

"They would remove his body, use his movements and replace it with my body. So I'm watching the movie of me doing these Olympic stunts, swinging through the jungle and thinking, 'Should I take credit for this?' Augusts deserves the credit, for sure."

And The Legend of Tarzan director David Yates admits even the ape man's jungle yodel didn't belong to his leading man.

"It was a combination of Alex doing a bit of shouting and then we got a big singer in because it was a really raw sound and we dialed in some animal sounds," the former Harry Potter mastermind explains.

But both men are still very proud of the latest Tarzan movie, and True Blood star Alexander credits his director with updating the story.

"This story has been told, what, 200 times over the past 100 years," the actor adds. "This one is more about returning to your roots than taming the beast. I thought that was so smart."