Alicia Vikander

The Body as a Working Tool

Alicia Vikander spent her teenage years training relentlessly at the Royal Swedish Ballet School. That military-style discipline in Stockholm came to an abrupt end when back and knee injuries kept her from continuing to dance. But acting was not her first choice, and she actually tried to get into law school twice without success.

In 2010, she starred in the Swedish film Pure after a grueling casting process. She played a young woman from a difficult background who finds refuge in the music of Mozart. She won the Guldbagge Award for Best Actress, and that recognition immediately opened doors for her in London.

And the plan worked out.

In 2012, she shot Anna Karenina alongside Keira Knightley and also the Danish film A Royal Affair. For the latter, she had to learn Danish in just two months, memorizing her lines by listening to audio recordings on her iPod. The film earned Oscar attention, and Hollywood put her name on its list of priorities for the following season.

The Controlled Explosion of 2015

That year, her face was everywhere on movie marquees across half the world. She premiered five films in radically different genres, but two of them defined her career. In Ex Machina, she brought to life Ava, a self-aware android who used her dancer's movements to create a constant sense of unease in the audience.

It was a purely physical decision.

That same season, she played Gerda Wegener in The Danish Girl. Her performance earned her the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress in 2016 and made her the second Swedish actress to win the golden statue, after Ingrid Bergman. It was the moment she stopped being a promising newcomer and took on a massive workload.

But global fame also brings the need to protect personal space. She moved to Lisbon with her partner, actor Michael Fassbender, seeking an anonymity London no longer offered her. There she set up her own production company, Vikarious Productions, with the goal of having a say in the development and casting processes of her films.

A Refuge in Independent Film

In 2018, she took on the challenge of inheriting the role of Lara Croft in the reboot of Tomb Raider. For the shoot, she gained eight kilos of muscle through intensive martial arts and climbing training. Critics were harsh on the film's storyline, but no one questioned her physical commitment to a character that demanded extreme endurance.

And the gamble paid off commercially.

In 2022, she returned to television with the HBO miniseries Irma Vep, directed by Olivier Assayas. It was a self-referential project in which she played an American movie star disillusioned with the industry. Filming took place in Paris and allowed her to explore a comedic, cynical register she had not shown in her earlier period dramas.

In 2023, she stepped into the role of Catherine Parr for the historical drama Firebrand. The production focused on the final months of Henry VIII's life and was presented in the official selection at the Cannes Film Festival. The film had a budget of $20 million and was shot entirely at Haddon Hall castle in Derbyshire.

Filming for her next project, Hope, was scheduled for the first quarter of 2025 in various locations across South Korea.