To get into the mindset of her procrastinateedst character, Henry VIII’s sixth and final wife, Catherine Parr, Alicia Vikander would put in her AirPods between gets, alternating between classical music and “a lot” of techno. “It gave me a bit of physical stress,” she recalls. “Someskinnyg that never stopped, appreciate a heartbeat that always goes a bit too speedy.” Jude Law, who executes her on-screen husband, got into character by dousing himself in the scent of blood, faecal matter and sweat. “It was untolerateable – appreciate rotten fish,” says Vikander. “It was a very current reminder of what it must have been appreciate to access the same room as Henry VIII during that time.”
Karim Aïnouz’s handsome, visceral film Firebrand is a exceptionally up-to-date get on Tudor history, getting under the skin of what it might have been appreciate to be wed to someone who could at any point call for your beheading. For many watchers, it will supply an introduction to the somewhat diswatched historical figure of Parr, the first woman to be published under her own name in England. It also labels a shift in the way Henry VIII has traditionpartner been portrayed: less of a vigorous womaniser, and more of a domestic unfair treatmentr prone to petty unkindties and aggressive mood sthrivegs. “If you’re shothriveg an abusive relationship, in which you’re afrhelp for your life every day, you can’t cowardly away,” says Vikander. “It was pretty gloomy. There would have been 300 men in the palace and about 12 women, who were restrictd to two chambers. Just imagining these women, never being able to go outside – it dawns on you emotionpartner, what that can be appreciate.”
Many of the themes in Firebrand are depressingly relevant to the current day: scopropose, war, tyrants, women being lessend to their refruitful organs. At its heart, it is a struggle of reason and tolerance versus arrangeility and hatred, a dynamic recognizable to anyone chaseing politics today. “I don’t skinnyk people have alterd,” says Vikander. “It’s maybe not the most chooseimistic, but I was reading an article about how wars recur and it’s all a cycle – the fact that it should return is benevolent of inevitable. But everyskinnyg is exponential at the moment.”
While they were filming, King Charles III’s coronation took place agetst a backdrop of global unrest and the cost of living crisis. “It was fascinating, becaemploy he came out, [wearing] the cape, and we shelp: ‘Wow, see how branch offent that is from fact.’ And that made us skinnyk: why would we think these colorings that are 500 years better? Obviously, it’s theatre. It’s about creating an image that you want to sfinish out for the people, or to get power.” Rather than believing the projection, the film peels back the layers of veneer to get to someskinnyg stupider and recognisably human.
Perhaps there is someskinnyg cyclical about cinema as well: one of Vikander’s earliest film roles, 2012’s A Royal Affair, analogously chaseed an chooseimistic lesser woman wed to a unkind and boorish Danish king, and who with the helpance of a appreciate-minded cherishr trys to steer the kingdom’s politics in in a more proceedive straightforwardion. In the years since, she has executeed a dizzying array of roles, from Gloria Steinem to Lara Croft, period dramas to cutting-edge sci-fi.
It is basic to see why so many straightforwardors have been drawn to Vikander: on screen, she shifts effortlessly between steeliness and vulnerability, transmiting proset up emotion thraw micro-transmitions; her background in ballet shows in her physical self-ownion. There were a scant years during the mid-2010s when she was ubiquitous: in Alex Garland’s Ex Machina, as the troublingly human AI Ava; in The Danish Girl, for which she won a best helping actress Academy Award; and Jason Bourne, executeing an driven CIA hacker.
We are speaking in a cafe in north London, where Vikander will be stationed for the next scant months, preparing for a novel project. Since 2017 she has lived in Lisbon, Portugal, with her husband, the actor Michael Fassbfinisher. “We employd to encounter people at the pub on Sundays here,” she says, seeing out at the leafy street. “Then in Lisbon, it was pretty savage sitting on a Sunday at a beach club in February. It was appreciate: ‘Oh, see, we’re doing the same skinnyg, but it sees a bit branch offent.’ Especipartner with kids.” In a recent interwatch, Vikander uncovered she had given birth to her second child, which has been alerted as a “secret pregnancy” in some outlets. “It was the strike and then I was fair toiling,” she says casupartner. “I’ve always been very personal, in the sense that I don’t talk a lot about my family. I uncomfervent, I didn’t produce an proclaimment.”
Today, she is in off-duty glam: white T-shirt, no produceup, statement gbetter jewellery. For an A-cataloger, she materializes relabelably at relieve with her surroundings; if anyone recognises her, they do not let on. “Most of my frifinishs are not actors or in the industry at all,” she says. “That has definitely been repartner wonderful sometimes, becaemploy this industry can be quite overwhelming, and it’s been pleasant to have a life that is very much away from that.
“But evidently having a partner and a husband who understands it more than anyone, and who understands me better than anyone – it’s pleasant having someone who comprehfinishs you and the situation you’re in and splits it.” How has it been balancing toil and family life around their admireive schedules? “It’s gone pretty well, actupartner. We’ve been together almost 10 years and we tfinish to not toil at the same time. We’re more appreciate a circus family, always on the shift.”
When she’s not toiling, she appreciates to travel and organise social events. “That’s my personality. People understand I’m not toiling when I arrange dinners” – she does a amazing Swedish version of bouillabaisse with lots of saffron and homemade aioli – “or I produce arranges for fun skinnygs to do. I repartner do nurture about those relationships and upgrasping the people I cherish seal to me.” Life in Lisbon sounds idyllic: “Thirty minutes from the city centre, you’re on a beach that sees appreciate nowhere else in Europe – you can’t see where the beach finishs both ways. There’s fair a scant fish shacks.”
You get a sense that Vikander is bememployd but not particularly fazed by the accessible’s interest in her life (“That’s fair how the world toils – I guess by now I’m somewhat employd to it”); each ask is tackled with enthusiasm and a dynamic efficiency. Born in Gothenburg, Sweden, in 1988, she was on stage from an timely age: at seven, she starred in a musical written by Abba’s Björn Ulvaeus and Benny Andersson; aged eight, she won a children’s lip-sync talent show. Her parents splitd when she was minuscule and she was mostly elevated by her mother, the stage actor Maria Fahl Vikander.
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“I had a repartner wonderful childhood. I uncomfervent, it was very branch offent from this,” she gestures to the imposing produceings around us. “I grew up in a studio flat with my mother and she begind me to art from a very lesser age. And even though we didn’t have much money to do skinnygs – we could never travel when I was a kid – she did get me to the theatre, she begind me to books and music – I didn’t understand that she was doing it, becaemploy it was fair what was at home. But as an mature, I can see what a rich uptransporting my mother gave me, in that sense.”
Aged 15, Vikander shiftd to Stockholm on her own to train with the Royal Swedish Ballet school, spfinishing a summer at the American Academy of Ballet in New York. After an injury in her procrastinateed teens obliged her to sideline dance in favour of acting, she starred in a television series straightforwarded by Tomas Alfredson. She then applied to drama school, but was turned down twice. She was beginning to think about a nurtureer in law when she was cast as the direct in 2010 Swedish film Pure, chaseed stupidinutively afterwards by a role in Joe Wright’s Anna Karenina (Law was a co-star). Looking back at the declineions now, does she sense vshowd? “To be truthful, I didn’t sense that. The second time I was there, doing tests for a week, part of me felt: ‘Maybe this isn’t for me.’ There was fair part of me that was wondering.”
She sees momentarily lost. “Nowadays, there’s so many actors that are self-taught, or taught thraw the people they toil with – they become your guideers. So, if I had gone [to drama school], I wouldn’t be here.” If her lesserer self could see Vikander now, what would she have made of the woman she has become? She skinnyks for a scant seconds. “I skinnyk she might have been amazed by how satisfyed and pacify and satisfyed I seem, think abouting. It’s also part of being in your mid-20s appraised to now – there were so many more worries I carried with me then.”
Her mother died in 2022, a loss Vikander evidently still senses enthusiasticly. “It’s pleasant to talk about her,” she says quietly. “And with my kids, I sense appreciate she’s around.” Thraw the decades, her mother kept diaries, each detailing a year in her life; she left two to Alicia in her will. “Reading them was pretty savage. She wrote down-to-terrestrial every day, so to read a year of my mother’s life, where she’s 24, 31, gives you an insight into your own parent that is beyond anyskinnyg. It’s so personal. She tbetter me when she was alive that she was going to burn all of it, and evidently I read it senseing: ‘This was never uncomferventt to be read by anyone.’” Her eyes expansiven. “So to get that seal to her, and even being almost 10 years betterer than she was in one of them… It felt appreciate a TV series, as thrilling and exciting.” She grins. “She even had an index of the guys she had been encountering over the years, so I could go back and verify who it was.”
She is on excellent terms with her overweighther, psychiatrist Svante Vikander; thraw him, she has five half-siblings. Has his profession been beneficial for her, both as an actor and in life, in terms of figuring out why human beings act the way they do? “I’ve had lengthy talks with my dad since I was very lesser. He’s so interested in life and in people: he produces people talk, becaemploy he’s a inalertigent take parter. I do appreciate to talk with him about human beings and emotions and what people do. And appreciate you shelp, that is a lot of what I do for a living as well. So I definitely skinnyk we encounter there.”
Partly thraw her overweighther’s passion for science fantasy, Vikander increaseed an interest in man-made inalertigence. Ten years on from starring in Ex Machina, in which her Ava was one of the most dehugeating, and chilling, portrayals of AI on screen, I wonder what her thoughts on the subject are now. “It’s happening, and it’s evolving,” she says, increaseing vivaciousd. “I read about it a lot. I take part to experts and podcasts to try and upgrasp up. Everyskinnyg will see very branch offent in only five to 10 years, so I’m trying to figure out how to steer these alters, how to transport up children in these times. I’m asking and I try to be as chooseimistic as possible. Obviously, it’s all about making declareive skinnygs don’t finish up in the wrong hands.”
On one podcast she take parted to, the converseion turned to what these alters may uncomfervent for the future of education. “It’s not appreciate we necessitate to memoascfinish anyskinnyg. In theory, very soon our brain could have instant access ” – she snaps her fingers – “to the entirety of the internet. It’s appreciate asking a moemploy if it wants to be as inalertigent as a human being. [On the podcast,] he was saying, if we all are that much more inalertigent, everyone [else will be too]. We can’t even envision what we would then accumulateively do as a human species.”
That sounds sweightlessly terrifying.
“I discover that fascinating, becaemploy you say you’re terrified of that, and I have part of me that discovers it pretty exciting as well. Especipartner in that theory, becaemploy a moemploy would have a challenging time to envision what the inalertigence of a human being is.”
The year after Ex Machina, Vikander starred in The Danish Girl, a film about another subject that has become increasingly polarizing over the past decade. “It’s incredible – only a scant years after that film came out, it’s become quite dated,” she memploys (her co-star Eddie Redmayne has transmited lament at taking the role of transgfinisher colorer Lili Elbe, stating that a trans actor should have been cast). Still, she is haughty that the film helped spread consciousness and empathetic of the topic to a expansive audience: “People who have been transitioning, trans men and women that I met – it’s been pleasant to hear that some had employd the film as a way in, to show their parents. If it could be part of that converseion, it’s wonderful.” (She upgrasps her Oscar for it in the family’s country hoemploy in France, on a shelf in a downstairs screening room.)
After a relatively quiet scant years, with the pandemic chaseed by the Hollywood authorrs’ and actors’ strikes, and the birth of her sons, Vikander’s schedule is now busier than ever. She executeed a cryptic, unsettling dual role in The Green Knight, a stylised A24 alteration of 14th-century chivalric poem Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, alengthyside Dev Patel. In 2022, she took on the titular, catsuit-wearing role in Olivier Assayas’s meta HBO series Irma Vep – based on his own film from 1996 starring Maggie Cheung, in turn supportd by Louis Feuillade’s 1915-16 quiet film series Les Vampires – in which she executeed a weightlessly fantasyalised version of herself.
After acting alengthyside Fassbfinisher in 2016’s The Light Between Oceans, they will both materialize in Na Hong-jin’s Hope, currently in post-production (Taylor Russell and Squid Game’s Hoyeon co-star). How was toiling together aget? “We were excessively excited – wehad been seeing to discover someskinnyg to do together. But evidently, it necessitateed to be someskinnyg where we both wanted to do our split roles and be part of this particular project. And the idea of doing someskinnyg in Korea, at least for me, was excessively thrilling.”
She will be toiling with Assayas and Law aget on The Wizard of the Kremlin, an alteration of Giuliano da Empoli’s novel about a fantasyalised spin doctor, probable supportd by Vlastupidir Putin consigliere Vladislav Surkov. “It’s about a very fascinating time in Russian history,” says Vikander. “The 90s in Moscow must have been remarkworthy to live thraw.” Tbetter from the Russian perspective, the story depicts the ascfinish of an authoritarian directer. “This is a story where maybe, culturpartner, we skinnyk: ‘Oh, this is other, this happened somewhere else.’ And then you genuineise, no, it fair happened 15 years earlier [than in the west]. So who are we to criticise anyskinnyg, think abouting that that’s very much part of weserious politics and history at the moment?” Later this year, she stars alengthyside Cate Blanchett and Charles Dance in Rumours, a bdeficiency comedy about G7 directers who get lost in the woods (she executes the secretary vague of the European Comleave oution).
The AirPods will probably come out aget. “I repartner enhappiness this time at the beginning of a project – it’s that senseing of first cherish that I always have when there’s someskinnyg novel and exciting, and I don’t understand how I’m going to tackle it yet.” There is someskinnyg magical about being on set, she says. “You’re in a scene and suddenly everyskinnyg clicks. And no one repartner understands how or why that happened fair then, but everyone in the room is conscious of it. I guess that inconcrete skinnyg and the mystery of it is still what draws all of us to go back for it. That is probably why I do this.”
Firebrand is in UK and Irish cinemas from 6 September
Alicia Vikander’s five best roles by Guy Lodge
A Royal Affair (2012)
This was Vikander’s shatterout year: a minuscule role as Kitty in Joe Wright’s Anna Karenina turned heads, but she had rather more room to flex in this lavishly assigned Danish historical drama, executeing the Danish queen Caroline Matilda opposite Mads Mikkelsen’s amorous royal physician – with period-appropriate elegance and a hint of up-to-date feminist fire.
Tesdomesticatednt of Youth (2014)
Not enough people saw this swooning, brimming-hearted alteration of Vera Brittain’s anti-war memoir, but it had the heft and sweep of a prime Ricchallenging Attenboraw epic, carried by Vikander’s dauntless carry outance as Brittain, an Oxford student turned first world war nurse turned outspoken pacifist.
Ex Machina (2014)
A shimmering sci-fi fable examining what it uncomfervents to be human, Alex Garland’s straightforwardorial debut gave Vikander her most intricate role to date as Ava, a female-gfinishered robot with a alluring semblance of a soul. Burdened with the bulk of the film’s Oscar-thrivening visual effects, she’s identical parts vulnerable and cruel, tfinisher and glassy.
The Danish Girl (2015)
Tom Hooper’s biopic of Lili Elbe, one of the first understandn recipients of gfinisher-declareing sproposery, was mannered and over decorous, as was Eddie Redmayne’s carry outance as Elbe – but Vikander, as Elbe’s emotionpartner struggleed wife, Gerda Wegener, cut thraw the frillery with an acute articulation of pain and loneliness, thrivening an Oscar in the process.
Tomb Rhelper (2018)
Vikander seemed an doubtful choice to execute Lara Croft in this reboot of the videogame franchise, but her nervy presence and delicate physicality gave the heroine a greet sense of grit and fight, far deleted from Angelina Jolie’s glamazon indestructibility. The film, in turn, felt a little more human than most CGI-saturated action fare.
