By Josh Rottenberg, Los Angeles Times

LOS ANGELES — Three years ago, Stellan Skarsgård suffered a stroke. It wasn’t catastrophic but it left him with damage to his short-term memory and focus. For a moment, he was certain his acting career was over.

“OK, so this is it,” he remembers thinking. “I’m finished.”

The Swedish actor, 74, was then in the middle of the most visible run of his half-century in film and TV, a towering presence in two major franchises, playing the monstrous Baron Harkonnen in Denis Villeneuve’s “Dune” and the rebel mastermind Luthen Rael in the Disney+ “Star Wars” series “Andor.” As soon as the shock subsided, Skarsgård began to look for a way forward.

“I said, I think I might be able to do it if I get somebody to read my lines,” Skarsgård says over Zoom from h

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