Why actress Alicia Vikander relies on the butterfly effect
Danish Girl co-star says a good script makes her stomach flutter
It’s a bit like that initial giddiness of a new romance, actress Alicia Vikander says to explain what happens when she finds a perfect role.
Those butterflies should be familiar by now to the 27-year-old Swedish actress, considering the varied, critically praised dramatic roles she’s played recently. Among them is the cunning A.I. Ava in Ex Machina, pacifist Vera Brittain in First World War drama Testament of Youth and now, artist Gerda Wegener in The Danish Girl.
“If it’s a project that’s very different from what you’ve done before and it is a bit of a challenge, I get extremely excited, almost the little high you get if you fall in love,” said Vikander during an interview just before The Danish Girl screened at TIFF in September.
She admits that accepting a challenging part, “frightens me a bit and I’m really nervous but it kind of makes me have that feeling in my stomach when you are drawn to (a role).”
Vikander was nominated on Thursday for a Golden Globe in the Best Actress, Drama category for the film.
She also was nominated in the Best Supporting category for her role in Ex Machina. There’s little doubt she’ll garner plenty more awardsseason attention for her work in 2015.
That includes The Danish Girl. Vikander plays Copenhagen artist Ger- da Wegener, whose husband Einar (Oscar winner Eddie Redmayne) struggles with the outward expression of his female self, eventually becoming Lili Elbe, the first person to undergo gender reassignment surgery.
“It’s quite rare to have a film where you kind of equally follow the two leads,” Vikander explained.
“It is a very unique (story) and yet I found it extremely relatable from the first time I read the script,” she said. “It’s very honest, I thought, about how with any kind of strong relationship between two people, when you go on a journey, changes happen.”
Gerda and Lili were soulmates, Vikander believes. What makes their path interesting is that as Einar out- wardly became Lili, they “still had the fight, the will to fight, to keep it all together. They were the greatest support for each other.”
Vikander looked up to Gerda as a modern woman, someone who worked and had her own identity in 1920s Demark, her efforts supported by her husband.
She’s also passionate about the role The Danish Girl has in the “social rights movement” of transgender equality. She quickly lists statistics about trans suicide and abuse rates, and the number of American states where a transgender worker can be fired.
“If our film can come out at that time and be part of that conversation, that would be more than won- derful,” she said. Art often springs from the most important issues in society and “this is real proof that is the case.”
That’s still holds true, she said, even though it took 12 years for The Danish Girl to be made, with different directors being attached before Tom Hooper and several other actresses playing Gerda, including Charlize Theron and Gwyneth Paltrow.
Redmayne is “a wonderful actor,” and his transformation surprised even her, said Vikander. She walked on set after he was costumed as the red-headed Lili, and didn’t recognize him.
“This woman turned around and I was like, wow!” she recalled.
It’s been a busy period for Vikander, who is now filming Paul Greengrass’s Bourne sequel after wrapping Derek Cianfrance’s drama The Light Between Oceans, alongside Michael Fassbender.
“I am very lucky,” she said, hesitating before admitting the pressures of her work creates the “tough reality that it is quite lonely.”
After living out of three suitcases in hotels for the past two-and-a-half years, she has a base in London. But she worried about keeping connections with close friends.
“I had a big fear that if I go away for six months, am I going to miss everything back home?” said Vikander. But her pals reassured her. “They all said, ‘What are you talking about?’ ” she said with a huge smile.