Alicia Vikander has revealed she and her husband Michael Fassbender are weighing up a return to London with their two young sons, after nearly a decade of family life in Lisbon.
The Oscar-winning actress admitted the couple, who married in 2017, had been “swept back into” the capital while she prepares for the stage and Fassbender films a new project.
Speaking to The London Standard, Vikander explained that the family, who relocated to Portugal in 2017, are now debating whether the UK could once again become their home base.
“I mean now that we are here and I mean this was both of our home for so many years so we’ve been super happy coming back and you get swept into it quite quickly - some of my best and oldest friends are here,” she said in the interview, published Thursday, September 10.
“And we were here last year for five months, and we soon realised that we are probably going to come back again next year, because I’ve been talking about wanting to do theatre for a long time.”
Vikander, 36, is preparing to star in The Lady From The Sea at London’s Bridge Theatre, while Fassbender films a new series in the capital.
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It marks the first time both parents have been working in the same city since welcoming their sons, aged four and one.
But the actress admitted her family often approach these moves like a “circus,” putting flexibility above permanence.
She recalled asking her older son whether he’d prefer the stability of one home and school while his parents worked away, sharing: “He immediately said no then I prefer us being together. So now we do the circus version of family.”
Adding: “But I think we are a bit addicted to… not London so much as moving itself. I have moved around like this since my early 20s, so it’s definitely the people in my family that are my home, not the place. Obviously the idea of uprooting children, of course that’s something I have thought about, and that I am thinking about… but there are a lot of upsides.”
The actress reflected on their slower-paced life in Lisbon, which was partly inspired by Fassbender’s passion for surfing.
“It’s such a beautiful place, and the quality of life,” she said. “We both come from northern countries so to be somewhere you can be outdoors most of the time, especially when you have a family… that’s the big difference.”
Despite eight years in Portugal, Vikander confessed she still doesn’t speak the language fluently. Instead, her eldest son has begun translating for her, as both children grow up trilingual through attending a Swedish school in the city.
The Swedish star also reflected on how the death of her mother, stage actress Maria Fahl, in 2022 shaped her approach to parenting.
“I’m just so happy that she got to become a grandmother for a couple of years,” she shared. “Because it is that thing, the day that you become a mother yourself - oh my god. I was like - did it take me 32 years to realise? To say thankyou, so much - wow. And I’m so happy I got to say it to her, and to mean it.”
Read the full interview in Thursday’s The London Standard
