Alexander Skarsgard used to end up "crying in the shower" after bad auditions.
The Big Little Lies actor has recalled the tough time he had before breaking into Hollywood - which still gives him "a little PTSD" when he faced a lot of rejection.
He told Jesse Tyler Ferguson's Dinner's On Me podcast: "I remember the feeling of coming back to my little s***** apartment in LA, you know, crying in the shower after a day like that.
"I just felt filthy in my soul and, like, zero confidence.
"I was like, ‘I’m the worst actor in the world, and I also have no dignity because I go in and audition for this stuff. I’m wasting their time.’ It’s a rough feeling.”
He eventually landed breakout roles in Generation Kill and True Blood in 2008, but before that he found the whole process "horrible".
Even after appearing in 2001's Zoolander, Alexander was still in a difficult position.
He said: "I found those experiences — they were horrible — when you go in for something that you know you’re not right for, and you’re not connecting with a character at all, but you’re at a place where you feel like you can’t say no to the audition."
Alexander - who was following in his father Stellan Skarsgard's footsteps - admitted he was close to getting dropped by is agent.
He added: “I was always on the cusp of being fired by my agents.
“If I say no to this [audition], they’re probably gonna drop me, so I gotta go in, but I don’t connect to the role. I’m completely wrong for it.”
He previously dabbled in acting as a child but quit when he turned 13, and returned to it when he reached adulthood.
At 19, the Swedish-born star signed up to national service and joked it was all because he wanted to be like the next James Bond, although it wasn't quite like the glamour seen in the Hollywood film series.
He told The Times newspaper: "Now it’s mandatory, but it wasn’t then and I didn’t do it for patriotic reasons to defend my country, to keep the Russians from invading Sweden, because that wasn’t even on the radar at the time. I did it because I was 19, I didn’t know what I wanted to do and I wanted to be James Bond for 18 months..
"Definitely less champagne and models.
"It was quite bleak. But it was also a really good experience for me because I was a team leader, and when we were out on missions it was mostly me and three other guys, which was a lot of responsibility for an idiot teenager. So I had to grow up a bit."
