The actress also opened up about experiencing an “extreme and painful” miscarriage before the birth of her first son.
Alicia Vikander explained that while it may look like celebrities have it all, being at the top of your career and commanding international fame can actually be extremely isolating.
The actress said in an interview with The Sunday Times that she found stardom to be a double-edged sword as “there was juxtaposition” between how things looked and what was actually going on for her behind the scenes. “In other people’s eyes, [when] I was at my height of fame, I was the most sad. I kept telling myself, ‘Take it in. It is incredible.’ But I didn’t know what to do,” she said. “There were all these first-class flights, five-star rooms. But I was always by myself.”
She added that shooting films on location can also be a “very lonely” experience. Vikander recalled that, in 2014, when she was filming Seventh Son, her first movie away from her family, “If I didn’t have my friends to call, it would have been difficult. I’ve seen what can happen to people in my industry.” She added, “Sometimes you go through things that are tough in life and if you have an office job you can step away for a bit. But there are times that myself or colleagues have been through something and, well, I can’t understand how they went on to the red carpet afterwards. To be met by people asking, ‘How are you doing?’ Given what they had just been through? Most people would not be able to step out of their house.”
But that loneliness began to abate when Vikander met her husband Michael Fassbender. The pair first met in 2014 on the set of their film The Light Between Oceans, in which they played husband and wife. They would go on to get married for real in Ibiza, Spain at the La Granja farmstead resort in October 2017, and in 2021 they welcomed their son who is now 17 months old. They currently live in Lisbon, Portugal.
Becoming a mother was not an easy process, however, as the actress explained that prior to the birth of their first child she experienced an “extreme and painful” miscarriage, adding, “We have a child now, but it took us time.” The character she played in The Light Between Oceans also experienced two miscarriages, as did a character in her most recent project, Irma Vep. “Talk about meta,” Vikander said of the parallels between her own life and those she plays on screen, adding that the film took on “another meaning” after she endured her own miscarriage.
In September 2021, Vikander also told People that after becoming a mom, “I now have a whole new understanding of life in general. That’s pretty beautiful, and obviously will give a lot to any of my work in the future.” [Source]
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