Height: 5′ 5½” (1,66 m)
Birthday: October 3, 1988 (27 yo)
Birth name: Alicia Amanda Vikander

Alicia Vikander was born in Gothenburg, the daughter of Maria Fahl, a stage actress, and Svante Vikander, a psychiatrist. Her parents are from small villages in the north and south of Sweden, respectively. They separated when she was five months old, and she was mostly raised by her single mother. She has five siblings on her father’s side. While growing up, Alicia says she got the best of both worlds, being an only child to her mother and being surrounded by a big family when she went to her father’s house every second week. Her ancestry is Swedish and one quarter Finnish.

She trained ballet with the Royal Swedish Ballet School from the age of nine in Gothenburg. At the age of 15, Alicia moved from Gothenburg to train at its upper school in Stockholm where she lived on her own, aiming to become a principal dancer. She appeared in several musicals at the Gothenburg Opera, such as The Sound of Music, Les Misérables and would travel around the world for summer courses, training one summer at the School of American Ballet. At the age of 16, she almost left school to fully commit to the television series she worked on with director Tomas Alfredson, realizing her passion for acting. Her dance career was sidelined by injuries in her late teens and she ended up auditioning for drama school but was turned down—twice. At one point, Alicia got in to law school but she never went, following her dreams to become an actress.

Alicia began her career by appearing in a number of short films and television roles in her native Sweden. She became well known in Scandinavia for her role in the popular Swedish TV drama Andra Avenyn (2008-2011).

Alicia got critical acclaim for her feature film debut, playing the leading role of Katarina, in the Swedish film Pure (2010).

In 2012, Alicia gained international attention for playing the key role of Kitty in the English language film adaptation of Anna Karenina opposite Keira Knightley and Domhnall Gleeson. The film premiered at the 2012 Toronto Film Festival and received positive reviews. That year, she also added Danish to her repertoire while co-starring as Queen Caroline Mathilde in the Nikolaj Arcel feature film A Royal Affair with Mads Mikkelsen.

Alicia was named as one of the 10 Actors to Watch: Breakthrough Performances of 2012 at the 20th Hamptons International Film Festival, was nominated for BAFTA Rising Star Award in 2013, and was the recipient of the Editor’s Choice Award at the 2013 Elle Style Awards.

In 2013, she starred as German Pirate Party member Anke Domscheit-Berg in The Fifth Estate opposite Benedict Cumberbatch and Dan Stevens.

In 2014, she appeared in the Australian crime thriller Son of a Gun, with Ewan McGregor and Brenton Thwaites. The film was released in Australia on 16 October 2014 and received mixed reviews, however, Vikander was praised for her performance.

In 2015, Alicia portrayed the leading role of iconic pacifist Vera Brittain in Testament of Youth alongside Kit Harington and Emily Watson. The film was released in wide distribution in the UK on 16 January 2015.

Alicia starred as the Artificial intelligence Ava in Alex Garland’s directorial debut Ex Machina, opposite Domhnall Gleeson and Oscar Isaac. Vikander’s performance was nominated for Best Actress at the 2015 Empire Awards.

The Swedish documentary Ingrid Bergman: In Her Own Words (2015), which Alicia narrated, screened in the Cannes Classics section at the 2015 Cannes Film Festival. It follows the life of one of the greatest female stars in Hollywood history, Ingrid Bergman. Directed by Stig Björkman, the documentary received a special mention for L’Œil d’or. She also had the female leading role in the Guy Ritchie-directed action film The Man from U.N.C.L.E., based on the 1964 MGM television series of the same name.

Alicia will portray painter Gerda Wegener in Tom Hooper’s The Danish Girl (2015). The film premiered at the 72nd Venice Film Festival and is scheduled for a 27 November 2015 release.

She will have the female leading role Tulip Fever (2015) directed by Justin Chadwick with Dane DeHaan and Christoph Waltz, the upcoming adaption of the novel The Light Between Oceans (2015) directed by Derek Cianfrance with Michael Fassbender and Rachel Weisz. She will also have a role in the upcoming film Burnt (2015) with Bradley Cooper and Sienna Miller. On 23 June 2015, it was confirmed by Deadline that Alicia will star in the upcoming film Bourne 5, directed by Paul Greengrass.

Alicia Vikander received critical acclaim in 2015 for starring roles such as the painter Gerda Wegener in The Danish Girl, for which she won the Academy Award, the SAG and the Critics’ Choice Movie Award for Best Supporting Actress and as the AI Ava in Ex Machina, for which she was nominated for a Golden Globe Award and BAFTA Award and as activist Vera Brittain in Testament of Youth.

Trivia:
A trained ballet dancer. She studied ballet at the Royal Swedish Ballet School, but decided to pursue acting instead of ballet, following few injuries and subsequent foot and back surgeries.
The directors she dreams to work with are Lars von Trier, Terrence Malick and Quentin Tarantino.
Raised in Göteborg, Sweden.
Her favorite actresses are Marion Cotillard, Isabelle Huppert and Jennifer Lawrence.

Quotes:
“I’d love to continue to work in Europe and the US. What I’m looking for is the right film and if that’s a big studio film, or a tiny film being shot in a few days in Europe, that’s not what I’m thinking about – it’s about the project and who I’m going to do it with.”
“It’s almost a kick that I’m looking for. I like to push myself, find new sides of myself and see how different the characters are that I can create with my craft.”
“[on being a brown-eyed, brown-haired Swede] I always get that question – where are your parents really from? Do you know where your dad’s from? [My parents] are both from very small villages, from up north and south of Sweden. I’m [also] a quarter Finnish, but that doesn’t really make me much darker.”
“I think I’m a big romantic, so being part of those stories, that’s such a big part of anyone’s life in general, that’s such a humane thing.”
“Both my mom and my dad have always included me in intelligent conversations about people, about characters, about how people work. My dad and my mom still read all scripts that I find interesting.”