Oscar-winner Alicia Vikander is preparing to step onto the West End stage for the very first time, nearly two decades after her last appearance in theatre.
The Swedish actress, best known for her roles in Ex Machina, The Danish Girl and Tomb Raider, will star in a new adaptation of Henrik Ibsen’s The Lady from the Sea at London’s Bridge Theatre.
It marks her return to the stage after 17 years - and her first-ever UK theatre performance.
Speaking to BBC News, Vikander, 36, admitted she was both “thrilled” and daunted by the challenge, admitting: “... it's my first time on stage as an adult”.
The production, directed and adapted by Simon Stone, will run for eight weeks from 10 September, The Walking Dead’s Andrew Lincoln also stars.
Vikander said she grew up surrounded by theatre, thanks to her mother, stage actress Maria Fahl: “I grew up being at the theatre a lot, my mother [Maria Fahl] was a stage actress, and I think even when I was dreaming of becoming an actress myself, being on stage was the journey that I kind of visualised.
She explained that in Sweden, theatre is often the core of an actor’s career: “And you're lucky to maybe have a TV show or film every couple of years, because that's how small the industry is in Sweden.
“So I think that's what I always saw in front of me. And then life happened, and throughout the years [theatre] has always been something I've been waiting for and thinking ‘it will happen’.”
Vikander said she is “super excited and wonderfully nervous” as the production enters its early development phase.
Director Simon Stone will begin shaping the final script during the upcoming workshopping process. A confirmed setting for the show has yet to be revealed.
Vikander takes on the role of Ellida, a lighthouse-keeper’s daughter with a deep connection to the sea.
Now married to a Norwegian doctor, her world is thrown into turmoil when a former fiancé, a mysterious sailor, reappears, forcing her to confront the life she left behind.
The play also introduces Hilde Wangel, the doctor’s daughter from a previous marriage. The character later returns in Ibsen’s The Master Builder, which is also on stage in the West End in a new adaptation starring Ewan McGregor.
It’s part of a wider Ibsen revival in London, An Enemy of the People, featuring Doctor Who star Matt Smith, also opened in the capital last year.
