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Alicia Vikander: ‘If you’re depicting an abusive relationship, you can’t shy away’

The Oscar-winning Swedish star on keeping her head as Henry VIII’s last wife in a no-holds-barred reimagining of the Tudor court, the rise of AI – and why filming feels like first love

Photograph: BFA/AlamyPerhaps there is something cyclical about cinema as well: one of Vikander’s earliest film roles, 2012’s A Royal Affair, similarly followed an idealistic young woman married to a cruel and boorish Danish king, and who with the assistance of a like-minded lover attempts to steer the kingdom’s politics in in a more progressive direction. So who are we to criticise anything, considering that that’s very much part of western politics and history at the moment?” Later this year, she stars alongside Cate Blanchett and Charles Dance in Rumours, a black comedy about G7 leaders who get lost in the woods (she plays the secretary general of the European Commission). Tomb Raider (2018) Vikander seemed an unlikely choice to play Lara Croft in this reboot of the videogame franchise, but her nervy presence and delicate physicality gave the heroine a welcome sense of grit and fight, far removed from Angelina Jolie’s glamazon indestructibility.

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