(Credits: Far Out / Harald Krichel)
Sat 4 October 2025 7:30, UK
Acting is a funny old business, as many of its biggest stars, such as Alicia Vikander, have admitted to feeling imposter syndrome despite being hugely experienced at their jobs.
In 2025, Vikander is an Oscar winner who has starred in box office hits and artistically forward-thinking indies alike. For every Tomb Raider or Jason Bourne that raised her profile in the US, the beautiful Swedish thespian has also made fascinating pictures like Rumours and The Green Knight, proving her ‘Best Actress’ win for The Danish Girl back in 2016 was no fluke. On top of that, with HBO’s Irma Vep, Vikander was also at the forefront of one of the most pioneering and unusual television shows of the modern golden age, showing that her taste in material has always remained impeccable.
So, with all this in mind, why didn’t Vikander feel like a “real actress” until comparatively recently? Well, it’s all tied in with her upbringing in Sweden, where she spent many nights watching from the wings as her mother, esteemed theatre actor Maria Fahl, gave immaculate performances in plays like Romeo and Juliet. In fact, she watched her mum perform in that seminal Shakespeare masterwork 24 times.
According to Vikander, in her native land, “If you were an actress, you were on stage,” with film and television being distant second and third options. So, to the young girl who stared up in wonder as her mother shone in the spotlight, the theatre was always where the best actors plied their trade.
“I dreamed of being up there,” she told Vogue. “That was what I visualised. I didn’t even think of film—that was so far away, that wasn’t real.”
Spurred on by her mother’s mastery of her craft, Vikander decided as a child that she wanted to follow in her footsteps. To her surprise, her mum initially forbade her from pursuing acting, mostly because she knew firsthand how unsteady it can be as a profession. “She was totally against me doing it,” Vikander told the BBC’s This Cultural Life. “I just had tantrums and fits and locked myself in my room until she said yes.”
Clearly, her tactics worked, because at only seven years old, Vikander made her stage debut as the youngest child of the central family in a musical written by Benny Andersson and Björn Ulvaeus of ABBA. She performed in that play for five years, ageing through the roles so much that, by the end of her tenure, she was playing the oldest child. After this, Vikander assumed she would continue to make her career on stage, but life threw several curveballs that kept her away from her first love.
For starters, she studied ballet for a period in her teens, but soon began landing recurring TV roles in Sweden. Before long, she landed her big-screen debut at 22 and, within a few years, had established a thriving movie career in America. Then she became one half of a Hollywood celebrity power couple, marrying Michael Fassbender after meeting him on The Light Between Oceans. They welcomed children in 2021 and 2024, and soon Vikander’s life became all about balancing work with mum duties.
Throughout it all, though, the conflicted star never forgot about her desire to return to what she considered the family business. Then, after her mother sadly passed away in 2022, that burning desire to finally make her stage debut as an adult actor became too compelling to ignore. So, when an opportunity came up a few years later to star in a reimagining of Henrik Ibsen’s The Lady from the Sea in London’s Bridge Theatre – all while her husband was in the city shooting his spy show The Agency – she decided to bite the bullet.
“I am tremendously, wonderfully nervous,” she confessed while still in prep for the role, which paired her with The Walking Dead’s Andrew Lincoln. However, they were good nerves, and best of all, she knew her mum would be proud of her. “In a wonderful way,” she smiled, “I feel like she’s kind of looking down on me like, ‘Ah, you’re finally becoming a real actress.’”
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