Today brings news of not one but two buzzy new projects for Swedish actress Alicia Vikander. She’ll star alongside Michael Fassbender in Derek Cianfrance’s adaptation of the M.L. Stedman novel, The Light Between Oceans, and has also been offered the lead female role in Les Miserables director Tom Hooper’s The Danish Girl, alongside Eddie Redmayne.
Vikander isn’t a huge name just yet, but may be familiar to stateside audiences for her roles in Anna Karenina and A Royal Affair. She also recently appeared in the Julian Assange biopic The Fifth Estate. Looking at the actress’s schedule, she’s gunning for a spot atop any new Hollywood A-List. In addition to these two hugely promising movies, she’s starring in Seventh Son, Son of a Gun, Ex Machina, The Man From U.N.C.L.E. and Tulip Fever.
We had cause to be excited about The Light Between Oceans even before Vikander came aboard, with Cianfrance and Fassbender involved, but the tremendously talented actress joining the cast just makes us all the more thrilled to see it. The movie focuses on a lighthouse keeper (Fassbender) and his wife (Vikander) on a remote island off the coast of Australia at the close of WWII. The two are faced with an ethical dilemma when a boat containing a dead man and a baby washes ashore – should they report their discovery, or raise the baby as their own?
Meanwhile, The Danish Girl, adapted from the book of the same name by David Ebershoff, looks like it could be something very special as well. It fictionalizes the story of real life painter, Einar Wegener (Redmayne) who, in 1930, became one of the first men to undergo gender reassignment surgery, a procedure which at the time was both highly experimental and misunderstood. Specifically, The Danish Girl focuses on the complex relationship between Wegener and his wife Gerda (Vikander). Charlize Theron, Gwyneth Paltrow and Rachel Weisz have all been attached to the role of Gerda at different points, so it’s exciting to hear that Vikander may take on the part.
It looks like Vikander is finally on the verge of a huge breakthrough, and I couldn’t be happier for her – the actress has worked hard for this, and she’s truly a magnetic force on screen. With her involvement, both The Light Between Oceans and The Danish Girl have shot way up on my must-see list.