Vikander finds guiding light
Actress has busy summer of varied roles
NEW YORK — Before Alicia Vikander earned her Oscar nomination for The Danish Girl, the Swedish actress was best known in North America as the Ex Machina robotic seductress.
She continues to increase her profile in Hollywood.
This summer Vikander, 27, has co-starred opposite Matt Damon in Jason Bourne and she will soon start filming the third Tomb Raider film, replacing Angelina Jolie in the Lara Croft role.
In the meantime, there is the romantic drama The Light Between
Oceans, based on M. L. Stedman’s acclaimed novel.
The Derek Cianfrance-directed movie features Vikander as Isabel who falls for lighthouse keeper Tom in Australia after the First World War. Eventually, they wed and try unsuccessfully to have children.
When a baby in a boat washes ashore, Isabel feels blessed, but Tom is tested by the moral dilemma as the couple raise the child as their own, while knowing the child’s mother is still searching for answers.
Co-starring are Rachel Weisz, Bryan Brown and Jack Thompson, but the focus of the film is the relationship between Fassbender’s Tom, a Great War survivor, and Vikander’s Isabel, a determined yet flawed wife and mother.
Vikander offers her considered opinions: On how she played Isabel: “(Cianfrance) told me she’s a fighter,” Vikander says. “She’s a survivor too, and she’s a girl with her heart on her (sleeve).”
On her character’s direct approach:
“I loved that Isabel’s so transparent,” Vikander says. “She does things and says things without thinking, which is quite liberating to play.”
On Isabel’s commitment to raising the child despite some complications:
“Good people sometimes don’t make the right moral choices,” Vikander says. “But I love the challenge of having the audience understand her and her actions.”
On bonding with Fassbender:
“I’m a huge fan,” Vikander says of her co-star, now boyfriend, who’s 39. “I remember so well when I saw
Hunger back home at my favourite cinema in Sweden many years ago.”
Fassbender on Vikander’s fortitude as a person and an actress:
“I said to (Cianfrance) early on, ‘This girl frightens me,’ ” Fassbender says. “She’s so fierce and brave as a performer. It kind of bowled me over. And it really made me feel like I had to come prepared in the morning.”
Vikander on why she wasn’t allowed on set the first day of filming in New Zealand:
“I knew that my first scene the next day was Isabel when she first arrives on the island,” she says.
When they filmed her sequence 24-hours later, “it’s not good acting you see, because it’s really Alicia, not Isabel, getting quite freaked out as I was looking at the most beautiful sunset I have ever seen.” On being involved with the
Jason Bourne film:
“That is a huge franchise and I’m a big fan, and I got to work with (director) Paul Greengrass and Matt Damon,” Vikander says. “It always comes down to the people I want to work with, and the privilege of it.”
On playing Lara Croft in the reboot:
“Roar Uthaug is the director of Lara,” Vikander says. “I loved what he did with The Wave, the ensemble that came out last year. So I am looking forward to the experience.”