Alicia Vikander tends to keep her personal life private, but in a candid new interview the Swedish actress opens up about her journey to parenthood and how a pregnancy loss made her reconsider it all.
While speaking with The Sunday Times, the Oscar winner said she suffered a miscarriage and struggled with infertility before welcoming her first child, a son, with husband Michael Fassbender last year.
“We have a child now, but it took us time,” the 33-year-old said.
The topic came up during a discussion about her new HBO series, Irma Vep, in which her pop star character is forced to perform onstage after having a miscarriage. Vikander also played a woman who suffered multiple pregnancy losses in The Light Between Oceans, the 2016 movie where she met and fell for Fassbender.
“[The miscarriage] was so extreme, painful to go through and, of course, it made me recall making that film,” Vikander told The Times. “That film has another meaning now.”
Michael Fassbender and Alicia Vikander of “Irma Vep” walk the red carpet at Cannes.
Andreas Rentz/Getty Images Entertainment/Getty Images
Vikander, who has acted in movies like The Danish Girl, The Green Knight, and Tomb Raider, confirmed the birth of her first child with Fassbender, 45, in September 2021, and recently opened up about her difficult path to motherhood in a May interview with Harper’s Bazaar.
“I tried to get pregnant for a while,” she said. “So I had tough times during [the COVID-19] lockdown. I struggled for a while.”
Vikander wasn’t sure she would ever share her personal experience, but insisted infertility is “universal and so many women go through similar things. And it’s tough.”
It was her own miscarriage that solidified her decision to become a mother, Vikander said, a real-life role that has changed her “in every way.”
“It’s life,” she said. “It’s so profound.”
For now, in order to keep some semblance of normalcy for their 1-year-old, Vikander said she and Fassbender take turns working and being home, insisting they always travel together. But the separation and long days on set can get “intense,” she admitted.
“Sometimes they came to the set just so he could see my face,” Vikander told The Times of Fassbender and their son.
The life of a working parent is never easy, but it’s all about finding a balance.
