Alicia Vikander: the new rising star from Sweden

by Anne-Lise Perioche

When eurocinema first introduced you to Alicia Vikander, the intriguing young Swedish actress new on the international film scene three months ago, she was nearly unknown to North American film audiences.

Born in 1988, Alicia Vikander trained at the Royal Ballet School in Stockholm, but after several injuries, she followed her mother’s career path step and turned to acting.

Last January, she was named Best Actress at the Swedish Oscar-equivalent Guldbagge Awards for her performance in Lisa Langseth’s psychodrama Pure, in which she played Katarina, a symphony receptionist who, with an alcoholic and nonexistent mother, seeks comfort in her proximity to Mozart and Massenet, in the arms of a married orchestra’s conductor. Pure debuted on eurocinema in July 2011 as part of the first ever Scandinavian On Demand Film Festival.

Since then, the young actress has been a rapidly rising star, creating a buzz throughout Europe. She now is setting her sites on conquering the U.S film industry. In 2011, she was named as one of European films’ Shooting Stars by European Film Promotion. Vikander just completed filming A Royal Affair, the new drama from Danish director Nikolaj Arcel-Nordisk. She will also play a supporting role alongside Julianne Moore and Jeff Bridges in The Seven Son, a film by Sergey Bodrov’s adapted from Joseph Delaney’ s The Wardstone Chronicles.

Vikander never sticks to only one project. She recently joined the cast of the adaptation of Leo Tolstoy‘s novel Anna Karenina. In the romantic drama, the Swedish actress will star alongside Keira Knightley (Pride & Prejudice), Jude Law, two-time Academy Award-nominee Emily Watson, Aaron Johnson (Nowhere Boy) and Domhnall Gleeson (Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows). Set in late 19th-century Russia, Anna Karenina explores the capacity for love that surges through the human heart, from the passion between adulterers to the bond between a mother and her children.

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