Alicia Vikander On Becoming Lara Croft
The new Tomb Raider movie is less than a year away now and EW sat down with actress Alicia Vikander, the new Lara Croft, as she discussed the shorts she’s fitting into and the responsibility that goes with it.
For Vikander, taking on the role of an action heroine is a first for her — and the fulfillment of a career goal. “I have mostly done dramas and indie films in my career but I don’t know how many times I’ve watched big adventure films like Indiana Jones or The Mummy. I love to get embraced in all those big journeys and to do an action role has always been a child’s dream of mine.”
It was a dream that felt close to impossible until recently. “I went to the cinema and saw Wonder Woman the other day. It’s a mixture of joy and sadness pouring over me, as I was thinking, ‘Oh, my God, I haven’t seen women onscreen like that.’ And I wondered how many stories there have there been throughout the years that haven’t been told. If Wonder Woman made such an impact, which it deserves to, then we need to use ten times as much force to make some change. Because it needs to happen.”
Vikander doesn’t give away too many details about the upcoming movie, but she did confirm this: Lara gets very wet. “We have a lot of water sequences,” she said. “I spent my last two days of shooting in a tank and that was my 16th total day being fully drenched or submerged in the water…. For one action scene, we used the London venue for Olympic rafting. They threw me down that river — with my hands tied — about 50 times. I didn’t need to act, just react!”
The full interview can be read at EW.com. Tomb Raider comes to theaters March 16, 2018.