To get into the mindset of her postponeedst character, Henry VIII’s sixth and final wife, Catherine Parr, Alicia Vikander would put in her AirPods between apshows, alternating between classical music and “a lot” of techno. “It gave me a bit of physical stress,” she recalls. “Someslenderg that never stopped, enjoy a heartbeat that always goes a bit too quick.” Jude Law, who joins her on-screen husprohibitd, got into character by dousing himself in the scent of blood, faecal matter and sweat. “It was untolerateable – enjoy rotten fish,” says Vikander. “It was a very conshort-term reminder of what it must have been enjoy to go in the same room as Henry VIII during that time.”
Karim Aïnouz’s handsome, visceral film Firebrand is a contrastently conmomentary apshow on Tudor history, getting under the skin of what it might have been enjoy to be wed to someone who could at any point call for your beheading. For many seeers, it will supply an introduction to the somewhat neglected historical figure of Parr, the first woman to be published under her own name in England. It also tags a shift in the way Henry VIII has traditionpartner been portrayed: less of a vigorous womaniser, and more of a domestic mistreatmentr prone to petty unkindties and aggressive mood striumphgs. “If you’re shotriumphg an abusive relationship, in which you’re afrhelp for your life every day, you can’t worried away,” says Vikander. “It was pretty bleak. 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 enjoy.”
Many of the themes in Firebrand are depressingly relevant to the conshort-term day: scoencourage, war, tyrants, women being shrinkd to their reefficient organs. At its heart, it is a struggle of reason and tolerance versus arrangeility and hatred, a vibrant understandn to anyone follotriumphg politics today. “I don’t slenderk 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 everyslenderg is exponential at the moment.”
While they were filming, King Charles III’s coronation took place aobtainst a backdrop of global unrest and the cost of living crisis. “It was fascinating, becaengage he came out, [wearing] the cape, and we shelp: ‘Wow, see how contrastent that is from truth.’ And that made us slenderk: why would we think these colorings that are 500 years ancigo in? Obviously, it’s theatre. It’s about creating an image that you want to send out for the people, or to obtain power.” Rather than believing the projection, the film peels back the layers of veneer to get to someslenderg grieffuler and recognisably human.
Perhaps there is someslenderg cyclical about cinema as well: one of Vikander’s earliest film roles, 2012’s A Royal Afequitable, analogously chaseed an visionary juvenileer woman wed to a unkind and boorish Danish king, and who with the helpance of a enjoy-minded cherishr endeavors to steer the kingdom’s politics in in a more proceedive straightforwardion. In the years since, she has joined a dizzying array of roles, from Gloria Steinem to Lara Croft, period dramas to cutting-edge sci-fi.
It is effortless to see why so many straightforwardors have been drawn to Vikander: on screen, she shifts effortlessly between steeliness and vulnerability, conveying proset up emotion thcdisesteemful micro-conveyions; her background in ballet shows in her physical self-haveion. 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, joining an ambitious 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 inhabitd in Lisbon, Portugal, with her husprohibitd, the actor Michael Fassbender. “We engaged to greet 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 enjoy: ‘Oh, see, we’re doing the same slenderg, but it sees a bit contrastent.’ Especipartner with kids.” In a recent intersee, Vikander discleave outed she had donaten birth to her second child, which has been alerted as a “secret pregnancy” in some outlets. “It was the strike and then I was equitable toiling,” she says casupartner. “I’ve always been very braveial, in the sense that I don’t talk a lot about my family. I unkind, I didn’t create an declarement.”
Today, she is in off-duty glam: white T-shirt, no createup, statement gancigo in jewellery. For an A-cataloger, she eunites retagably at relieve with her surroundings; if anyone recognises her, they do not let on. “Most of my friends are not actors or in the industry at all,” she says. “That has definitely been repartner wonderful sometimes, becaengage this industry can be quite overwhelming, and it’s been pleasant to have a life that is very much away from that.
“But clearly having a partner and a husprohibitd who understands it more than anyone, and who understands me better than anyone – it’s pleasant having someone who understands you and the situation you’re in and spreads it.” How has it been balancing toil and family life around their esteemive schedules? “It’s gone pretty well, actupartner. We’ve been together almost 10 years and we tend to not toil at the same time. We’re more enjoy a circus family, always on the shift.”
When she’s not toiling, she enjoys to travel and organise social events. “That’s my personality. People understand I’m not toiling when I arrange dinners” – she does a wonderful Swedish version of bouillabaisse with lots of saffron and homemade aioli – “or I create arranges for fun slendergs to do. I repartner do join about those relationships and grasping the people I cherish shut to me.” Life in Lisbon sounds idyllic: “Thirty minutes from the city centre, you’re on a beach that sees enjoy nowhere else in Europe – you can’t see where the beach ends both ways. There’s equitable a scant fish shacks.”
You get a sense that Vikander is bemengaged but not particularly fazed by the accessible’s interest in her life (“That’s equitable how the world toils – I guess by now I’m somewhat engaged to it”); each ask is tackled with enthusiasm and a quick 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 petite 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 unkind, it was very contrastent from this,” she gestures to the imposing createings around us. “I grew up in a studio flat with my mother and she presentd me to art from a very juvenileer age. And even though we didn’t have much money to do slendergs – we could never travel when I was a kid – she did apshow me to the theatre, she presentd me to books and music – I didn’t understand that she was doing it, becaengage it was equitable what was at home. But as an mature, I can see what a wealthy 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, spending a summer at the American Academy of Ballet in New York. After an injury in her postponeed 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 commencening to ponder a atsoft in law when she was cast as the direct in 2010 Swedish film Pure, chaseed unwiseinutively 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 honest, 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 equitable part of me that was wondering.”
She sees momentarily lost. “Nowadays, there’s so many actors that are self-taught, or taught thcdisesteemful the people they toil with – they become your directers. So, if I had gone [to drama school], I wouldn’t be here.” If her juvenileerer self could see Vikander now, what would she have made of the woman she has become? She slenderks for a scant seconds. “I slenderk she might have been amazed by how greeted and soothe and plrelieved I seem, pondering. It’s also part of being in your mid-20s assessd to now – there were so many more worries I carried with me then.”
Her mother died in 2022, a loss Vikander clearly still senses willingly. “It’s pleasant to talk about her,” she says mutely. “And with my kids, I sense enjoy she’s around.” Thcdisesteemful 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 pragmaticly every day, so to read a year of my mother’s life, where she’s 24, 31, donates you an insight into your own parent that is beyond anyslenderg. It’s so braveial. She tancigo in me when she was ainhabit that she was going to burn all of it, and clearly I read it senseing: ‘This was never unkindt to be read by anyone.’” Her eyes expansiven. “So to get that shut to her, and even being almost 10 years ancigo iner than she was in one of them… It felt enjoy a TV series, as thrilling and exciting.” She grins. “She even had an index of the guys she had been greeting over the years, so I could go back and verify who it was.”
She is on excellent terms with her overweighther, psychiatrist Svante Vikander; thcdisesteemful 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 juvenileer. He’s so interested in life and in people: he creates people talk, becaengage he’s a clever joiner. I do enjoy to talk with him about human beings and emotions and what people do. And enjoy you shelp, that is a lot of what I do for a living as well. So I definitely slenderk we greet there.”
Partly thcdisesteemful her overweighther’s passion for science myth, Vikander broadened 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, grotriumphg vivaciousd. “I read about it a lot. I join to experts and podcasts to try and grasp up. Everyslenderg will see very contrastent 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 brave slendergs don’t end up in the wrong hands.”
On one podcast she joined to, the talkion turned to what these alters may unkind for the future of education. “It’s not enjoy we need to memoascend anyslenderg. In theory, very soon our brain could have instant access ” – she snaps her fingers – “to the entirety of the internet. It’s enjoy asking a moengage if it wants to be as clever as a human being. [On the podcast,] he was saying, if we all are that much more clever, everyone [else will be too]. We can’t even envision what we would then accumulateively do as a human species.”
That sounds sairyly terrifying.
“I discover that fascinating, becaengage you say you’re terrified of that, and I have part of me that discovers it pretty exciting as well. Especipartner in that theory, becaengage a moengage 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 splitting over the past decade. “It’s incredible – only a scant years after that film came out, it’s become quite dated,” she mengages (her co-star Eddie Redmayne has conveyed lament at taking the role of transgender colorer Lili Elbe, stating that a trans actor should have been cast). Still, she is haughty that the film helped spread adviseedness 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 engaged the film as a way in, to show their parents. If it could be part of that talkion, it’s wonderful.” (She grasps her Oscar for it in the family’s country hoengage in France, on a shelf in a downstairs screening room.)
After a relatively mute scant years, with the pandemic chaseed by the Hollywood writers’ and actors’ strikes, and the birth of her sons, Vikander’s schedule is now busier than ever. She joined a enigmatic, 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 eased by Louis Feuillade’s 1915-16 mute film series Les Vampires – in which she joined a airyly mythalised version of herself.
After acting alengthyside Fassbender in 2016’s The Light Between Oceans, they will both eunite in Na Hong-jin’s Hope, currently in post-production (Taylor Russell and Squid Game’s Hoyeon co-star). How was toiling together aobtain? “We were excessively excited – wehad been seeing to discover someslenderg to do together. But clearly, it needed to be someslenderg where we both wanted to do our split roles and be part of this particular project. And the idea of doing someslenderg in Korea, at least for me, was excessively thrilling.”
She will be toiling with Assayas and Law aobtain on The Wizard of the Kremlin, an alteration of Giuliano da Empoli’s novel about a mythalised spin doctor, probable eased by Vlaunwiseir Putin consigliere Vladislav Surkov. “It’s about a very fascinating time in Russian history,” says Vikander. “The 90s in Moscow must have been exceptional to inhabit thcdisesteemful.” Tancigo in from the Russian perspective, the story depicts the ascend of an authoritarian directer. “This is a story where maybe, culturpartner, we slenderk: ‘Oh, this is other, this happened somewhere else.’ And then you genuineise, no, it equitable happened 15 years earlier [than in the west]. So who are we to criticise anyslenderg, pondering 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 joins the secretary vague of the European Comleave oution).
The AirPods will probably come out aobtain. “I repartner endelight this time at the commencening of a project – it’s that senseing of first cherish that I always have when there’s someslenderg novel and exciting, and I don’t understand how I’m going to tackle it yet.” There is someslenderg magical about being on set, she says. “You’re in a scene and suddenly everyslenderg clicks. And no one repartner understands how or why that happened equitable then, but everyone in the room is adviseed of it. I guess that inpalpable slenderg and the mystery of it is still what entices 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 Afequitable (2012)
This was Vikander’s fractureout year: a petite 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, joining the Danish queen Caroline Matilda opposite Mads Mikkelsen’s amorous royal physician – with period-appropriate elegance and a hint of conmomentary 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 Attenbocdisesteemful 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 unkinds to be human, Alex Garland’s straightforwardorial debut gave Vikander her most complicated role to date as Ava, a female-gendered robot with a alluring semblance of a soul. Burdened with the bulk of the film’s Oscar-triumphning visual effects, she’s identical parts vulnerable and cruel, tender and glassy.
The Danish Girl (2015)
Tom Hooper’s biopic of Lili Elbe, one of the first understandn recipients of gender-declareing sencouragery, 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 thcdisesteemful the frillery with an acute articulation of pain and loneliness, triumphning an Oscar in the process.
Tomb Rhelper (2018)
Vikander seemed an doubtful choice to join Lara Croft in this reboot of the videogame franchise, but her nervy presence and dainty physicality gave the heroine a receive sense of grit and fight, far erased from Angelina Jolie’s glamazon indestructibility. The film, in turn, felt a little more human than most CGI-saturated action fare.
