Alicia Vikander facts for kids

Quick facts for kids Alicia Vikander
Vikander in 2024
Born	Alicia Amanda Vikander (1988-10-03) 3 October 1988 (age 36) Gothenburg, Sweden
Citizenship	Sweden UK (since 2020)
Alma mater	Royal Swedish Ballet School School of American Ballet
Occupation	Actress
Years active	2002–present
Spouse(s)	Michael Fassbender ​ (m. 2017)​
Children	2
Awards	Full list

Alicia Vikander is a talented Swedish actress. She was born on October 3, 1988. Alicia has won many important awards for her acting. These include an Academy Award and a Screen Actors Guild Award. She was also nominated for three British Academy Film Awards and two Golden Globe Awards.

Alicia grew up in Gothenburg, Sweden. She started acting as a child in plays at the Gothenburg opera house. She also trained to be a ballet dancer at the Royal Swedish Ballet in Stockholm. Her acting career began in Swedish short films and TV shows. She became well-known for her role in the TV series Andra Avenyn (2008–2010).

Her first movie was Pure (2010). For this role, she won the Guldbagge Award for Best Actress. She became more famous in 2012. She played Kitty in the movie Anna Karenina. She also played Queen Caroline Mathilde in the Danish film A Royal Affair.

Alicia became known worldwide for several roles. She played Vera Brittain in Testament of Youth (2014). She was also a humanoid robot in Ex Machina (2014). For Ex Machina, she was nominated for a BAFTA Award for Best Actress in a Supporting Role. She won an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress for her role as Gerda Wegener in The Danish Girl (2015).

In 2016, Forbes magazine included Alicia in its "30 Under 30" list. Since then, she has starred in many films. These include the action movie Jason Bourne (2016). She also played Lara Croft in Tomb Raider (2018). Other roles include The Green Knight (2021) and the TV series Irma Vep (2022).

She married actor Michael Fassbender in 2017. They have two children.

Early Life and Training

Alicia Vikander was born in Gothenburg, Sweden. Her birthday is October 3, 1988. Her mother, Maria Fahl Vikander, was a stage actress. Her father, Svante Vikander, was a psychiatrist. Her parents separated when she was very young. Alicia was mostly raised by her mother. She also spent time with her five half-siblings from her father's side.

Alicia started acting when she was seven years old. She performed on stage and on television. She also began training in ballet at age nine. She studied at the Svenska Balettskolan i Göteborg. When she was 15, Alicia moved to Stockholm to train at a ballet school there. She lived by herself. She also trained for a summer at the American Academy of Ballet in New York.

By age 16, Alicia almost left school to focus on a TV series. She realized how much she loved acting. Later, injuries made her stop her dance career. She tried to get into drama school but was not accepted twice. She was even accepted into law school at one point. But she chose to follow her dream of becoming an actress instead.

Acting Career

Starting Out

Alicia's first acting job was at age seven. She was in a play called Kristina från Duvemåla. This play was written by Björn Ulvaeus and Benny Andersson from the band ABBA. She performed in it for over three years. She also appeared in other musicals like The Sound of Music and Les Misérables.

In 1997, she was on a children's singing show called Småstjärnorna. She sang a song by Helen Sjöholm and won her episode. Judges praised her stage presence. She then appeared in many short films and TV shows in Sweden. From 2008 to 2010, she was in the Swedish TV drama Andra Avenyn.

Becoming Known Worldwide

Vikander (right) and director Lisa Langseth at the 2012 Cannes Film Festival

Alicia received great reviews for her first movie, Pure (2010). She played Katarina, a troubled secretary. For this role, she won the Rising Star Award in 2010. She also won the Shooting Star Award at the Berlin International Film Festival.

In 2011, she played Fragancia Fernandez in The Crown Jewels. In 2012, she became known internationally. She played Kitty in the English movie Anna Karenina. This film was shown at the 2012 Toronto International Film Festival.

That same year, she learned Danish for her role as Queen Caroline Mathilde. This was in the film A Royal Affair. This movie was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film. Alicia was named one of the "10 Actors to Watch" in 2012. She was also nominated for the BAFTA Rising Star Award in 2013.

In 2013, she starred in The Fifth Estate. She played Anke Domscheit-Berg. She also had a main role in the Swedish film Hotell. For this, she won an award at the Marrakech International Film Festival. In 2014, she was in the Australian thriller Son of a Gun. Critics praised her acting in this film.

Major Successes

Vikander at the 2015 San Diego Comic-Con

Vikander in December 2015

In 2015, Alicia was in eight movies. She received a lot of praise for playing painter Gerda Wegener in The Danish Girl. For this role, she won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress. She also won a Screen Actors Guild Award and a Critics' Choice Movie Award.

She also received great reviews for her role as Ava, an AI robot, in Ex Machina. For this, she was nominated for a Golden Globe Award and a BAFTA Award.

Alicia played Vera Brittain in Testament of Youth. Critics loved her performance in this movie. She also played Alice Deane in the fantasy film Seventh Son (2015). She narrated the documentary Ingrid Bergman: In Her Own Words (2015). She was also in the action film The Man from U.N.C.L.E. and the movie Burnt (2015).

In 2016, Alicia started her own production company called Vikarious. Their first film, Euphoria, was released in 2017. She starred in Jason Bourne (2016) with Matt Damon. She also appeared in The Light Between Oceans (2016) with Michael Fassbender.

In 2018, Alicia played Lara Croft in the action movie Tomb Raider. In 2019, she was in the short film I Am Easy to Find. She also starred in the thriller Earthquake Bird for Netflix.

Recent Work

In 2020, Alicia played a young Gloria Steinem in the movie The Glorias. She also starred with Dev Patel in the medieval fantasy film The Green Knight. She was in the thriller Beckett and Blue Bayou in 2021.

In 2023, she played Catherine Parr in the film Firebrand. She is also starring with Cate Blanchett in the film Rumours.

Advocacy

Alicia Vikander believes in gender equality. She has spoken out about the need for more fairness in the film industry. She noted that she made five films in a row before having a scene with another woman. She wants to be part of the change. She believes that movies like The Hunger Games show that female characters can lead successful blockbuster films.

In 2017, Alicia was one of many women who spoke up about bad behavior in the Swedish film and theater industries. She signed an open letter in a Swedish newspaper. The letter shared many stories of unfair treatment that women faced. The women who signed the letter promised to "no longer be silent."

Personal Life

Alicia Vikander with her husband Michael Fassbender in 2020

In late 2014, Alicia started dating actor Michael Fassbender. They met while filming The Light Between Oceans. They first appeared together in public at the 2016 Golden Globe Awards. They got married on October 14, 2017, in a private ceremony in Ibiza, Spain. They have two sons, born in 2021 and 2024.

Alicia lived in London for several years. In 2017, she moved to Lisbon, Portugal, with her family. She is a citizen of both Sweden and the UK.

Filmography

Film Roles

Year	Title	Role	Notes
2010	Pure	Katarina
2011	The Crown Jewels	Fragancia Fernandez
2012	A Royal Affair	Caroline Matilda of Great Britain
	Anna Karenina	Ekaterina "Kitty" Alexandrovna
2013	The Fifth Estate	Anke Domscheit-Berg
	Hotell	Erika
2014	Testament of Youth	Vera Brittain
	Son of a Gun	Tasha
	2015	Ingrid Bergman: In Her Own Words	Ingrid Bergman (voice)	Documentary film
		The Man from U.N.C.L.E.	Gaby Teller
2016	Jason Bourne	Heather Lee
	The Light Between Oceans	Isabel Graysmark Sherbourne
2017	Birds Like Us	Huppu, Mi (voices)
	Tulip Fever	Sophia Sandvoort
	Euphoria	Ines Thompson	Also producer
	Submergence	Danielle Flinders
	Moomins and the Winter Wonderland	Little My, Sorry-oo (voices)
2018	The Magic Diner Part II	Herself	Short film
	Tomb Raider	Lara Croft
	Arden's Wake: Tide's Fall	Meena (voice)	Short film; also executive producer
	Anthropocene: The Human Epoch	Narrator	Documentary film
2019	I Am Easy to Find	Woman	Short film
	Earthquake Bird	Lucy Fly
2020	The Glorias	Gloria Steinem
2021	Blue Bayou	Kathy LeBlanc
	The Green Knight	Essel, The Lady
	Beckett	April Hanson
2023	Firebrand	Catherine Parr
2024	Rumours	Celestine Sproul
	The Assessment	Virginia
2026	Hope	TBA	Post-production
TBA	The Last Day	Julia	Post-production
	The Wizard of the Kremlin	Ksenia	Post-production

Television Roles

Other Projects

In 2020, Alicia Vikander narrated a chapter for an audiobook. It was "Pippi Longstocking Moves Into Villa Villekulla." This was part of a charity project called "Pippi of Today." It helps raise money for girls who are moving from place to place.

In 2021, Alicia recorded the song "Blue Bayou." This song is featured in the Blue Bayou (Original Motion Picture Soundtrack).

See also

In Spanish: Alicia Vikander para niños

• List of actors with Academy Award nominations
• List of oldest and youngest Academy Award winners and nominees
• List of Swedish actors