Alicia Vikander talks about becoming Lara Croft
The first time Alicia Vikander was introduced to the character of Lara Croft, she was nine years old and still living in her native Sweden.
She was visiting a friend’s house when she spied a bunch of older boys playing the video game “Tomb Raider.” Almost instantly, Vikander was intrigued by the sight of a bad-ass woman in a tank top saving the world from villainy.
“I hadn’t seen a girl, a female protagonist, in a computer game before and I was so curious,” recalls the actress. “I actually remember standing there, and I asked those older boys if I was allowed to play and they wouldn’t let me. I had to wait until it was just me in that room. I sneaked down and I did play the game then.”
Years later, Vikander recalls playing the anniversary version of the game, which appeared in 2013, and she remembers checking out the two movies starring Angelina Jolie.
“Angelina Jolie made [Lara Croft] into an icon and it was one of the first times we got to see a female action hero on screen too,” says Vikander.
Now, Vikander is starring in “Tomb Raider,” a reboot of the movie series. Unlike the Jolie franchise, the latest film is an origin story in which Lara is initially glimpsed as an everyday young woman who can’t seem to do anything right.
Chafing at being told what to do by everyone around her, and still smarting about her beloved father’s (Dominic West) mystery disappearance, Croft stumbles upon a video from her Dad telling her she needs to travel halfway across the world and investigate one of her father’s associates, Mathias Vogel (Walton Goggins).
As far as Vikander is concerned, “Tomb Raider” is as much a coming-of-age film as it is an action extravaganza.
“This film is now based a lot more on the 2013 rebooted game, and there she is, a normal girl in the beginning,” notes the actress, 29.
“If you have the origin story, then that’s a way for us to get to know our character, to feel for them, to relate to them on a more human level. I thought it was wonderful that I could play a young woman who’s still trying to find her footing in the world.
“It’s a story where she goes out in the world and all the traits and skills that she has within her, she’s forced to pull them out, due to the adventure that she goes on and the challenges that she’s put through.
“It’s also very empowering when you get to the end because I think if you have seen all of her struggles, and you feel for her as a real girl, it makes you be with her emotionally and you root for her even more.
“So in the end, when she’s holding on to that cliff and she’s managed to get out of that tomb, you hopefully celebrate with her and look up to her.”
While Vikander won an Oscar for “The Danish Girl” and has appeared in countless films including “Ex Machina,” “Jason Bourne” and “The Light Between Oceans,” she admits that “Tomb Raider” felt like it was completely out of her wheelhouse.
“I had never taken on a character and a role in a film like this before,” says the actress who is married to actor Michael Fassbender.
“I was a dancer before so to try and pretend that I can do an MMA fight: that was really daunting to do that in front of people. I was almost like, “Just don’t look.”
“But all eyes were on me. That was scary. But then I think, we worked so hard, and we met up in the mornings and we worked on script.
“I think it is a daunting thing is to make these big studio films, these big adventures which I have loved since I was a kid… the biggest challenge…was to give it a lot of energy and force throughout the shoot.”
Producer Graham King was astonished at Vikander’s commitment to the project.
“Alicia was in the gym every single day before shooting,” he recalls. “I would actually put her performance along Sigourney [Weaver] when she did “Aliens.” An audience is just wowed by this and they can see her physicality and see how hard she works.
“I would say that out of all the films I’ve been involved with…I’ve never seen someone with so much dedication, with so much energy, so much excitement.”
The physicality of the role was a lure for Vikander who was happy that the film kept gunplay to a minimum.
”Something we discussed in one of the first meetings we had was the fact she doesn’t use a gun in this film,” says Vikander. “I loved it that everything that she uses, even if it’s down to an ice pick, she needs to be innovative.
“She needs to use what she has around her and if she doesn’t have the size or the same strength [weapon], she needs to use her wit and intelligence, instead. So definitely that was something that attracted me to the role in the beginning.”