Stephanie Bunbury.
Turn a heavily wallpapered corner and there are two Van Dyck portraits; a covered walkway linking wings of the house is lined with 1st-century Roman busts bought by the eighth Earl of Pembroke from Cardinal Mazarin.
We’re in Wilton House in Salisbury, peering through artfully distressed hedges at Alicia Vikander being filmed as Lara Croft, aka the Tomb Raider, returning to her ancestral pile. Our guide assures us this is the 14th film to be shot in these grounds and none of the techies has broken so much as a single plate. Still, I fear for the integrity of those Roman heads.
A Lara Croft film revival has been on top of a few production slates, according to executive producer Patrick McCormick, since the game was successfully rebooted in 2013.
‘‘But they were waiting for the right director, the right casting: it doesn’t always come together until you have the right people.’’ Even then, nobody could have guessed that women in Hollywood were about to declare the dawn of a new era – an era, one might think, simply crying out for the story of a fearless female archaeologist armed with a bow and arrow.’’
Lara is played by Swedish
The Lara Croft for the new era is all about combat pants and biceps, writes
actress Alicia Vikander, who trained as a dancer.
‘‘With every role, physicality defines the character in a way,’’ she says. ‘‘And that is a lot of my preparation. She’s a physical being.’’
Vikander started training six days a week before shooting began, lifting weights and climbing. Just this morning she did an hour of gym before going into makeup.
‘‘Since I quit dancing I always did yoga, pilates and a lot of running, but my trainer told me no running or cardio; it was time to gain weight.
‘‘I gained six kilos, which is a lot for my bodyweight. I eat five times a day, probably more food than I have ever eaten in my life. It’s amazing because you kick-start your metabolism and you’re hungry all the time. As soon as I hit the three-hour mark, people on set can tell I’m hungry.’’
Of course, Lara’s physicality has changed over the years. The Barbie Doll silhouette and hot pants that defined the early pixelated Lara – which was turned into more credible flesh and blood by Angelina Jolie in the Lara Croft: Tomb Raider live action films of 2011 and 2003 – have given way in both game and live action to muddy combat pants and cut biceps. The new film is, moreover, an origin story grounded in a recognisable world.
We first meet Lara as a 21-yearold MMAenthusiast training in an old East End boxing gym; she is gradually revealed to be a renegade aristocrat whose father (Dominic West) disappeared on one of his many mysterious missions seven years earlier.
‘‘I don’t think I thought about it being a video game,’’ Vikander says. ‘‘Just that it’s got a huge following and I wanted to honour that and give the fans what they want, but also to surprise them. When we meet her, she’s living in a commune, working as a courier –