Spotlight: Alicia Vikander is Lara Croft
Lara Croft is set to hit the big screen once again
Here’s what you need to know about the movie and its star as action heroine Lara Croft returns after 15 years.
1The new movie is based on the 2013 reboot of the original videogame series. It sees Lara Croft, the fiercely independent daughter of a missing adventurer, quitting her job as a bike courier in London to search for her father’s last known destination, a fabled tomb on a mythical island.
2Swedish-born Alicia Vikander (29) takes over the lead role from Angelina Jolie (now 42) who starred in 2001’s Lara Croft: Tomb Raider and its sequel, Lara Croft Tomb Raider: The Cradle of Life (2003). “Angelina was a terrific Lara Croft, but we’re making a very different film, an origin story, and I think fans will love Alicia,” director Roar Uthaug says. “Making Lara Croft feel like a real human being is something we also want to bring to the big screen.”
3Alicia says as a kid she was a big fan of the video-game series released in 1996, and that she wants to honour Lara. “Even though she’s changed over the years it’s her basic traits that I still wanted to bring out. She’s fierce, tough, curious, intelligent, but we’ve stripped away all of her experience. This is the beginning.”
4Alicia and Angelina share more than just a physical resemblance. Both have won best supporting actress Oscars – Angie in 2000 for Girl, Interrupted while Alicia won in 2016 for The Danish Girl.
5Daisy Ridley, Emilia Clarke, Cara Delevingne and Saoirse Ronan were all contenders to play Lara before Alicia was chosen. Daisy was in fact offered the role but turned it down due to her commitment on Star Wars: Episode IX, due out next year.
6The movie marks the second time Dominic West (48) and Alicia have played dad and daughter – the first time was in the 2014 World War 1 flick Testament of Youth.
7Filming took place last year in England and South Africa. Local sites include Plettenberg Bay on the Garden Route, a quarry in Paarl in the Western Cape, and sets built at Cape Town Film Studios near Somerset West where a huge outdoor water tank was made to resemble a Hong Kong harbour.
8Alicia embarked on a gruelling training regime to develop the muscles she needed for the role. “It took about four months to get in shape,” she says. “I did ballet [she’d had ballet training as a teen before turning to acting] and the trainer told me I was really underdeveloped.”
9Alicia did all her own stunts in the movie and says there was one that really terrified her. “For one action scene they threw me into a river – with my hands tied – about 50 times. I didn’t need to act, just react!”
10It remains to be seen how well Tomb Raider will do. The first flick raked in $273 million (then around R3,2 billion) at the box office globally but the sequel made only $157 million (then about R1,02 billion).