As I mentioned in a previous Alicia Vikander story, Alicia covers the January issue of Vogue. You can see the editorial here – they styled Alicia with baby-bangs throughout, and it’s kind of rough. Her motion looks great, and the clothes are to die for, but the bangs kill it for me. It’s like Vogue was just trying to needle me!! The profile is actually a breezy, no-news-here read, but I still walked away annoyed by her. I can’t exactly put my finger on why though. It’s not any one thing, maybe it’s just a general vibe that she seems very tightly-wound. There’s a whiff of Anne Hathaway about her too. You can read the Vogue interview here, and here are some highlights:
The constant pain of ballet: “I push myself hard. I don’t like pain, exactly, but as a ballerina I lived in constant pain. At ballet school in Stockholm, I remember we had a locker where if someone had been to the doctor and gotten painkillers, we divided them among us. In a sense we were all addicted. After I quit dancing, for a while it felt strange not to be in pain. It was as if an old friend, not a good friend but a presence, always tagging along, had left me.”
The Danish Girl & trans issues: “This was not a film of the ‘now’ when we started making it and it’s frankly amazing to think of the cultural change that has taken place since we started. But I think it’s important to remember that the issues Lili encountered 100 years ago are still issues. You read the statistics about how trans people are physically and psychologically abused, how they are discriminated against at work. This is a civil rights movement.”
Being asked to have lighter, less “tan” skin: “Two years of films where I had to be white as a ghost. But I’m a real Swede! In fact, I’m a quarter Finnish. Here I go, exploding stereotypes.”
She was in therapy when she was a ballerina: “In ballet school we all had very good grades, but not because you needed to be smart to dance. It was because ballet is about perfection, and if you weren’t perfect, it was like the world was falling apart. I experienced a lot of stress around that. I went to therapy without telling my parents.”
The fear of celebrity: “I can still go camping with my friends or go on the tube or the bus. I feel, for now, that I’m still able to see this industry from both sides. Sometimes I wonder whether that’s going to change and suddenly I’m going to just—I don’t know, go to the other side, if there is another side. I still have that fantasy, or maybe fear, about celebrity.”
The rumors that she & Michael Fassbender broke up: She denies the reports, saying, “I always believed there must be some truth to the stuff you read. But I learned.”
There’s Fassbender information sprinkled throughout the cover profile, actually. Maybe that’s what annoys me – she says at various times that she’s not going to talk about her relationship, so she must have gone off-the-record to verify certain pieces of info, just so the words “I’m still dating Michael Fassbender” wouldn’t be attributed to her. It’s a game that some people play, and it’s an annoying game at that. The Vogue writer is the one to say that Michael Fassbender is Alicia’s “real-life boyfriend.” Vogue also has a story from Nicolas Ghesquière (the artistic director of Louis Vuitton, the same one who hired Alicia to be the LV brand-ambassador) where he “recalls his surprise when she pulled up to a photo shoot in Barcelona on the back of Fassbender’s motorcycle.” As for words actually coming out of Fassbender’s mouth, he didn’t speak to Vogue, but he did email one comment, in which he praised her physicality and “the way she embodies her characters from head to toe.” Sure.
Photos courtesy of David Sims/VOGUE.
i love fassbender as an actor, but as a person… mh. i mean, she could probably do better.
that said, it also annoys me when actors go “oh i don’t talk about my relationship!” and then they do so much, by dropping hints and kinda talking but not talking. mate, you either talk or you don’t and i like you better if you don’t anyway.
There’s a difference between talking about them exhaustively, and referring to them in passing because it’s unavoidable. That doesn’t mean they’re playing games with you.
Yep, you can acknowledge you’re with someone while refusing to make it the story.
Its sad when a young woman in this day and age has to use her bf name to promote herself. Could it be that Alicia is just not that interesting enough? Could it be that she and her PR have no confidence in her talent and that she lacks personality to draw attention by herself ? Or could it be that Alicia is not confident in her relationship with Fassbender? Hmm. Seen past pictures of this actress where she dressed better ,not great, but better and had a HINT of a tan. Honey, a word to the wise if you have to change yourself to suit your boyfriend’s TASTES that is not the man for you. Keep away from the spray tan because in the past you looked much better.
It’s not spray tan. As she said, she’s a Swede with some Finnish, and she has naturally olive skin. I didn’t get the impression that she was changing anything to suit her boyfriend – she was referring to directors asking her to have whiter skin. It sounds like you want her to change her skin color to suit you, which is worse.
@Ella. What a stupid dumb response. Where did you get the idea that I wanted her to change her skin colour. Did I touch a nerve. Hmm. It sounds to me that you have race issues.
I read the article and she never mentions him. The few times his name comes up, it’s always the writer or another person who references him.
The buzz surrounding her this year is way more than Fassbender so makes no sense as to why they would bring him up or why she would feel she needs him.
I agree about what she said about ballet and pain. I used to play a sport and would be in constant pain in atleast one part of my body and now i miss it in a way.
Agree. She’s being portrayed as the new Natalie Portman and she doesn’t need him for PR.
I honestly think the media has just been aggressively asking her about him, and she’s constantly evading questions. It’s easier just to say “yeah, we’re still together.” There is a huge buzz around her this year, yes, but the buzz around Fassbender is also huge (Macbeth, X-Men), and as a couple their buzz-powers combined are more than doubled.
The choppy bangs just ruin the entire look, I have no idea what they were thinking going with those.
I just can’t take it seriously when someone says they won’t talk about their famous significant other but then there are little mentions all through the article. One mention, fine, but five or six?
Yeah the choppy baby bangs ruined the entire photoshoot for me. Why Wintour why? Vikander is such a pretty girl but that hair no.
As for the Fassbender thing, maybe they told her to mention him, but I feel like she doesn’t need that kind of buzz. She’s had a good year, really good movies & she’s nominated. Yeah he’s well known but she doesn’t need to mention him to get noticed. So her PR needs to stop, call Wintour & tell her no more choppy baby bangs next time & move on.
Came here to say I hate the bangs too. I actually can’t tell what kind of a haircut thats supposed to be either? It looks like a 4 year old who tried to give herself a pixie cut. Or like a bowl cut – pixie hybrid.
It’s such an ugly cover and her hair is the worst part.
Maybe I’m the only one but I love the cover. She’s gorgeous and I like the choppy bangs. It feels real.
the bangs work on her in the photo. she looks good.
She looks very much like Zoe Kravitz here. I kinda like it.
I like that black and white pic. Love the dress there.
Those bangs suck!
All I see is Zoe.
He has a type!
Ross/Russ!
I thought the same thing–they styled her to look like Zoe.
I think so too in fact she looks biracial to me.
I hate the term bi-racial most blacks from the caribbean and North America are bi racial. Oprah is technically bi-racial.
Bi-racial doesn’t mean “half Black”. It means of two races. Any two races. So why would you “hate the term”?
@Denisemich Oprah is biracial, she’s 97% of African descent lol.
Really? Let’s all pretend that you don’t know what I mean by using the term. “Oprah is biracial” and “I hate the term” whatever. Fine, but get a grip and realize that a large percentage of the population uses the term. It is not meant to be offensive but descriptive and you two picking it apart is absolutely asinine. Damn, can’t even post an innocuous comment without someone being all nitpicky. Weird.
All I see is borderline Blackface.
Fresh looking cover!
i LOL’ed at the “Canadian Camelot” story being mentioned on the cover.
For Sophie’s sake, I hope Justin is not a JFK-type.
Honestly i thought that was Paula Patton on the cover, but then why on earth should Paula get a Vogue cover?
Anyway the styling is horrendous and she really doesn’t know how to “act” in photoshoots, she always looks like she’s trying to embody the vibe of the photoshoot, which is trill an art with the right photographer, but she always fails.
The Fassbender name dropping has to stop, and also the vague statements, first she says she’s expecting to be a big awards contender now she says she didn’t.
She’s talented but way too thirsty. I still side eye her because of her references to Jennifer Lawrence career.
Interesting. What did she about Lawrence?
She said she wants a career like her’s or something in that lane.
Yeah. But the annoying thing is that the whole vibe of the comment was: “I’m way better than JLaw and look how famous and rich she is while I’m here waiting. I’ll show you b*tches”. That’s what I got from her comment.
@ Alice
What she said was that she aims for a career like her’s because she admired her choices in balancing studio films and prestigious ones. There was nothing rude or snarky about her words.
I guess people see what they want to see though.
I sort of like the little bangs, she whispered quietly…
So do I. She looks great with short hair; cheekbones.
agreed GNAT. the bangs work in these photos with the styling.
I have had these bangs for 15 years and love them, judge me bang-hatin’ world.
Count me in; I’ce had mine for eleven years and I look GOOOOD with bangs!
Me too. They work for her in this instance.
I’m getting old-school Audrey Tautou vibes from here here. I agree that it somehow works.
I like the little bangs too! They remind me of 1920’s Berlin and I think Alicia can carry them off. I also think she is dazzlingly pretty, though not very sympathetic.
I like them too. It makes me realize how versatile her looks are. She looks quirky and artistic here, when typically she has a different vibe.
I love the bangs on her. It changes up her look and it looks fresh. Those are fake bangs though right? I think if I saw her with bangs all the time then maybe I wouldn’t like it as much.
She’s lovely but these photos are so unflattering. I’m in the minority that likes her and part of it is because I’m sick of the false modesty so many of these stars spew so her ambition is refreshing. I also find it a nice change up from the bathroom humor and Gillian Flynn cool girl archetype from Gone Girl that is so popular in the media. I do think the media and or her PR is pushing her a bit hard though and she’d benefit from toning it down if possible. She’s had several great performances and it will be interesting to see how her career progresses.
She’s much prettier than these photos would suggest – they’re actually pretty terrible. I’ve enjoyed her work, but the “breeziness” seems like calculated affectation to hide a raging ambition. This girl WANTS it – I daresay, even way more than Hathaway.
You have got to want it if you want to go anywhere as an actress in this business. She just talks about it more. But all those other starlets would kill and eat their mothers if they had to to get a good part.
I don’t buy her breeziness either. In all interviews that I’ve seen of her she seems somehow uptight even when she tries to be relaxed/cool. She wouldn’t have made it this far without a big dose of ambition.
I like her as actress ( she is very good on screen except in this movie with Cavill and Hammer) but I dislike her in interview ( even if I agree on the part on the pain in sport) so I don’t read her interviews.
It is great to be ambitious but it is different to be arrivist and fame-hungry and she is arrivist and fame-hungry
She comes across as well into herself. And it doesn’t help that she also happens to have a bit of a snooty face. I feel bad for her because she might be a really sweet person who is just very analytical by nature … and she can’t help the face she was born with. Like me with my BRF (B*tchy Resting Face).
I like the FRINGE.
I think this is an occasion in which I am Spartacus but nobody else is.
I also want to know why bangs is a plural term.
Rightyho then, your’e Spartacus. In that case I’m Brian – and so’s my wife…( I also like the FRINGE)
When she says she is “a real Swede”, does that mean she wants us to believe she has 0 black ancestry? The bangs made it more obvious. Not that it should be hidden.
She doesn’t have black ancestry but I hear she has ashkenazi jewish ancestry like Noomi Rapace.
In Sweden it is mostly those of jewish ancestry in the entertainment industry. Some look very stereotypical swedish white but a lot also look like Noomi and Alicia.
I am swedish so I know a bit about the backgrounds of a lot of actors here.
Ooh Stellan and his brood!
Love him in the BBC’s River!
She mentions she is 1/4 Finnish and while most Finnish people are very fair and even blonde, there are also Finns (especially men) with very dark hair, strong brows and skin that gets a dark tan quickly. My ex-boyfriend and my male cousins all look like Mediterraneans in the summer.
Even Scandinavians come in all shapes, sizes and colors 😀
Actually, there are more blond men than blond women in Finland.
I think hair bleach that is popular among women makes people think mostly women are the blond ones, this is not true. There are more blond boys born than blond girls.
Noomi Rapace isn’t part Jewish; she’s distantly Roma but she’s unsure. Her father is from Spain, which may explain her coloring.
I don’t think she has black in her. She’s just a fan of the tan. There are pictures of her where she’s much paler.
people keep saying that, but i’ve yet to see those pics.
Wait, why would a Swede have black ancestry? I did miss something?
People all over the world can have black ancestry,
Our former swedish prime minister has black ancestry through his paternal great granfather.
Black people didn’t just pop up in Europe in the last decades, they have traveled the world and lived in Europe for many centuries. Look at medievil England and there were black people there as well.
A lot of Americans unfortunately are uneducated about the world in general.
That last sentence…ouch but true.
@An: What about Breakfast Margaritas comment made you think they are American? Oh I forgot, anyone that doesn’t know everything must be a ignorant American, right? AV probably made that comment about her skin simply because Fassbender had dated a few women of African American descent who are of a similar shade to her and wanted to make sure that people knew she was white. If anything this is less about Americans being “uneducated” and sounds more like her trying to preserve her privilege. Wouldn’t want to be mistaken for mixed race and lose out on all of those star making roles. Plus her use of the word “real” sounds a touch xenophobic, but I wont to get into that.
Anyway, the history of black people in the Europe not being well known has more to do with racism and the fact that white history is given precedent whenever we talk about the past ( really that goes for all subjects). So a person isn’t necessarily uneducated just because they don’t know much about a history that is generally not taught and overlooked. Plus I’m sure there are plenty of “uneducated” Europeans that are just as unaware of the fact that black people have been living on their continent since antiquity.
An, many Americans are quite ignorant about the rest of the world, that’s true, and what bothers me personally is not so much the ignorance but the anti-intellectual streak one can find in many corners of the American society. But if the corollary of what you’re saying is that Europeans are so much more knowledgeable, well, that’s debatable. In my experience (I studied in Belgium, France, worked in FRance for two years, and traveled as much as I could all over Europe during that time and since then) Europeans are well educated in all aspects of European civilization, but that’s not the entire world. I met people there who thought Iranians were Arabs (this was a while ago), who would have been hard pressed to point Bihar or Kinshasa on a map, or who did not know the basics of Chinese history.
No my dear An that isn’t it. Why would someone in an interview mention they are “a real Swede” then people on here start with “she wants us to believe she has 0 black ancestry”. No sh** blacks just didn’t pop up all of the sudden and that more people in the US are of mixed blood than anything else. Hell, there are more Hispanics in California than “whites”. But it’s odd that she felt it necessary to mention “I’m a real Swede” then have this be the rest of conversation. This tells me more about Europeans than anything else. Especially when you got one country that has a black Santa and they can’t figure out why Americans (and I’m sure other nations) would call them out on it. So no An, it’s not that Americans are uneducated about how the world is a mixing pot.
My question had more to do with the history of Sweden, slavery, & racism than anything else. I obviously should have done a better job at writing it.
I’m Norwegian, and sometimes it gets a bit annoying when people literally refuse to believe you are of the nationality/ethnicity you say you are (due to the Scandinavian stereotype). I have dark hair and tan easily, and I’ve been pegged as Arab, Asian, Eastern European, basically anything but, depending on the season. So I wouldn’t assume she’s coming from a place of xenophobia.
I also suspect people here aren’t necessarily as aware of their full genetic ancestry as Americans may be, as it’s more of a special interest than something you’d want to know for the sake of scoring cool points (and the older generations may not be comfortable talking about it).
No, she’s actually saying the reverse, that she LIKES her naturally tan skin and that apparently It’s normal for Swedes and Finnish people to have tan skin. They put “White” makeup on her for movies.
“Being asked to have lighter, less “tan” skin: “Two years of films where I had to be white as a ghost. But I’m a real Swede! In fact, I’m a quarter Finnish. Here I go, exploding stereotypes.”
That’s how I read it too. Swedish girls are known to be blonde and very tanned and she likes that….
So thirsty. She’s like “please, please, be aware, I’m actually white even though I definitely look exactly like a non-trivial number of biracial actresses that have been put in the ‘black’ category and thus struggle for the kind of work I get even though they basically have to put me in whiteface to do period pieces where I play a European!”
Zoe Kravitz should try changing her last name and claiming to be just a “particularly tan” European.
Also, Sami Swedes (aboriginal Swedes with dark skin and hair and a slightly Asiatic look) aren’t real Swedes? SMH.
@ALEXIS
LMAO. If you read her comment without a biased agenda, it’s in perfectly clear and straight forward English. Not trying to be rude to others but there is no way to misinterpret that statement unless one is looking to turn her into a racist or English is not your first language.
She is simply correcting a myth (and no doubt the endless internet comments even on this site that were accusing her of having a fake tan) that all Swedes should have pale skin, blonde hair and blue eyes. You know like how Hollywood portrays them? That’s the stereotype she is correcting. She is letting us know that yes many Swedes and Finish people have her skin, hair and eye color. Just like their are many blonde hair and blue-eyes Jews but you won’t get that from Hollywood movies.
Same with Italians & Spaniards- blonde hair blue eyes.
Ahh! You just made me realise what rubs me the wrong way about her! I think she’s incredibly pretty and an okay actress but like for Kaiser there’s something about her that irritates me. And I might have found out what it is:
I don’t think she’s saying what you say she is saying at all, but it is what’s happening. She looks like a lot of bi-racial or Latina actresses who will never get to where she is because of their ethnicity. Yet she is white so she can not only get the white-girl roles but also the “ambiguous-ethnicity” ones that sometimes are the only chance for a poc actress to get a good, well-written part.
It’s not her fault, it’s Hollywood that’s screwed up, but looking at her reminds me of this BS and makes me unconsciously dislike her.
I thought Zoe was Hispanic when I first saw her in a movie. Learning her racial make up later didn’t change anything for me. I think people are often projecting racial attitudes on others from their own negative experiences.
The situation with Latinos and Hispanics is even more confusing because technically many of them are 100% white and it seems only the US puts them into a separate from whites category.
This is the actual paragraph in Vogue where this comes up. I agree with Original TC that she is saying that unlike the stereotype many of us have of Swedes(blonde, blue eyed, pale as ghosts), there are as many variations among Swedes as there are among other nationalities. To jump from that to thinking she’s saying “I’m white, really, really” is a stretch IMO.
“If there was any early obstacle, it may have been Alicia’s coloring: She is not the ice sculpture that Hollywood often imagines for its Nordics. Again and again, she has been asked to wear long sleeves and SPF 100 in order to help the makeup department conjure the desired pallor. “Two years of films where I had to be white as a ghost,” she says now, laughing. “But I’m a real Swede! In fact, I’m a quarter Finnish. Here I go, exploding stereotypes.”
Side-eye to ‘the real Swede’ skin color comments and implications.
ITA
Sorry but the more I read about her the less I like her. The photos and styling are frightful, this hairstyle does her no favours…
How does a young woman/teen go to therapy without telling her parents? Why would you hide that? How do you pay for your sessions??
The comment about her light skin makes no sense to me. I don’t understand her quarter Finnish, real Swede point… is she supposed to be dark? Tanned? Someone please explain it to me.
Fear of celebrity? Girl, please. You are covering Vogue and walking every red carpet you can find. If that is not seeking celebrity, what the hell is it?
And why would celebrity stop you from going camping? Maybe I am just too harsh this morning but her word salad and try hard ways are just annoying. I really admire hustle and hard work and I see nothing wrong with anyone who says I want to become a household name. That’s cool. It’s the hypocrisy I can’t bear and this one is brimming with it.
I think she means that Swedes are supposed to be pale but she isn’t, she’s more of an olive skin tone. Darker Swedes do exist, a lot of my relatives have a similar skin tone to Alicia’s and get very tanned in the summer time (though I assume these photos are the result of a lot of bronzer).
I’m part Swedish/Norwegian and most of me and my family are so pale we’re almost transparent 😛 Its a Scandinavian thing most of us are light haired/skinned. I think she meant she didn’t fit the typical Scandinavian stereo type.
Yes, the fair haired and skinned Scandinavian is a stereotype. My father is 1/2 Norwegian, 1/2 Danish and he and my aunt both have black hair, brown eyes, and very dark ruddy skin, as do all the Norwegians in our family tree!
“How does a young woman/teen go to therapy without telling her parents? Why would you hide that? How do you pay for your sessions??”
I assumed the ballet school paid for the sessions. Although now I’m wondering how I myself came up with the implication since she doesn’t seem to mention anything of the sort in the interview. Maybe therapy is free in Sweden? I assume they have health-care, and maybe therapy counts under that.
Maybe, but if you are a minor, wouldn’t you require a parent to know you are in therapy? For safety purposes? We have free healthcare in Canada too, but to go to counselling you need a referral from a GP and /or a parent to take you and pay – lots of medical care is free but sadly counselling is not. And no therapist would see a minor without informing the adults in charge – not of the stuff being discussed, of course, unless it was a life threatening issue. Anyway, maybe I am making too much of it. To me it just sounded like trying so hard to create drama out of everything.
Thank you all for chiming in with the skin related comments. I think it was the way she expressed herself, it was very confusing to me, because all I see looking at her is a white girl. Tan or not, I didn’t understand what she was fussing about. As far as pigmentation differences go, and your comments evidence, I always believed that you can find pretty much every shade of skin and eye colour amongst the various Caucasian families – despite having the same parents, my brother and I look so unlike each other, one blond and green eyed and very fair skinned, the other black haired and eyed with olive skin. We both took the very extremes of our multi-cultural multi-ethnic heritage. Not sure why anyone would ask her to look “whiter”. Is that a thing now?? Ugh. Some days I hate HW.
@vauvert Schools here usually have a counselor who can act as a sort of therapist. It could be that is what she’s referring to.
I think it’s fairly plausible that she’s a liar made of lies. Actors are not known for being honest peoples. It would be hard for a minor to get therapy without parents knowing, and if she’s just chatting with a guidance counselor, that’s not therapy.
My view is… If you have to sit here and really think about it to make sense, it generally is an untruth. At least a half of one, if not an outright lie.
I’m Finnish-Swedish, BLONDE and BLUE-EYED and I have the same skin tone as Alicia in the summer (sometimes even darker). There is such a thing as Scandinavians who tan easily!
Aren’t swedish women known for that tan?
In Australia, for example, if you are 16 or older you can obtain certain medical treatment/healthcare without parental knowledge/consent. I did visit my gp, including getting referred for counselling, on several occasions without my parents’ consent/knowledge when I was 17 and living away from home. I haven’t told them – and it’s now 20 years later – because I didn’t want them to worry about me.
And Sweden has a long tradition of socialised medicine. Quite possible mental health treatment is subsidised (or free).
Can’t judge other countries by the US health system’s standards. To the rest of the world it seems – unusual, to be polite.
Therapy is free in Sweden. I agree with all your points, but I think the therapy part she’s being genuine. She seems very tightly wound.
The skin comments is easily explained (the other posters have done it perfectly). My cousin’s daughter (Greek) is blonde, blue-eyed and very light-skinned and she constantly says things like “I’m a real Greek!” because people won’t believe she isn’t part German/Scandinavian etc. Whereas I am half German and Germans always look dubious when I tell them because I do look 100% Greek (in a stereotypical way).
I’m half- Italian (my father is full Italian) and I look as light as a pasty swede because my mother is Swedish/Danish/Welsh/English. My parents are both darker complected and tan easily, I look like my swedish side of the family and look really pale, burn easily.
Hm. With those bangs in that final black and white shot she looks a LOT LIKE Zoe Kravitz. Just sayin…
Before reading I thought exactly the same. Zoe..
She does doesn’t she?
She doesn’t look like Zoe to me but seems like I’m in the minority. It’s strange how just a few weeks ago people were accusing her of having a fake tan and trying to look Black. Now some either think she is denying Black ancestry of is trying to look like Fassy’s ex.
I feel like the problem specific Fassbender fans have against Alicia is him being in a relationship with her destroys the narrative that Fassbender only likes Black or Biracial women. She was dismissed as a PR relationship, then just a hookup and now back to PR relationship for Fassy to win an Oscar.
Pretty sure now that she says this is her natural skin tone there will be massive research to prove she is Black to keep the fantasy of Fassbender only dating Black women. Instead of being upset at Fassy why are people mad with her?
There are people on the internet who have a problem with Alicia Vikander not being black, and blame her for it? Gross! Some fans of Fassbender they are. I know just from reading comments here that he has dated white and Asian women before, so I guess people just don’t do research. It’s so funny how people will claim that someone has a “fetish” for black women, or Asian women, based on one or two relationships, and refuse to accept any evidence to the contrary. There’s something vaguely racist about the assumption that someone wouldn’t choose to date women of color unless they had some sort of kink.
That’s an unfortunate cover and pose, something about the design work of the cover looks so…half done? Amateur InDesign?
Agree with Kaiser, something about her persona is annoying but I don’t know what it is.
I don’t understand the comment she made about her skin color. Is she saying that all Swedes are tan? There’s something about the cover photo that gives her the appearance of being mixed race. She looks beautiful.
That’s literally the opposite of what she’s saying. Are you dumb? So many dumb people on this site.
Pretty girl and decent actress. I think she would do well to tone down her thirst though. Nothing wrong with ambition, but her eagerness to have fame and then dispell it makes me look at her funny. Which one is it? Its nice that she’s not the “Cool girl” type but she comes across as boring and dry. Like Vauvert said, the more i read the less i like her.
I love the cover and I do love the dress in that final shot you’re talking about. Don’t get the hate for her nor do I find a single thing in that interview annoying but different strokes.
As for she and Fassbender, they’ll be together until they’re not. I for one hope they stay together awhile.
Me neither. I really enjoyed the interview too. She’s seems very introspective about fame, her childhood, being a perfectionist etc.
I don’t have any issues with how she answered the Fassy question either. Other actors do the same thing and don’t get criticized for it. The journo was the one putting in the Fassy references, not Alicia.
Magazines like Vogue work closely with an actor’s PR team to craft a story. It’s not real journalism like the NYTimes. The fact that all of her interviews follow a similar pattern of referencing him but pretending to be coy and ‘no comments’ is a standard PR trick – we want you to mention him and we’ll give you a soundbite off the record, but no official statements. In fact, Alicia’s career is a very interesting study in PR.
Of course, not to suggest that acting had nothing to do with it. She can actually act, so probably will have longer lasting power than poor Blake Lively.
same here. don’t get the hate, but if someone becomes the chosen one to hate/dislike in an article, some people are easily manipulated by the gossip and hate away along with it. unfortunately. her interview was fine, i didn’t read all the negative things into it that some did, and her photo along with the bangs looked good.
Count me in. I have no problem saying that her name on the marquee is more likely to get me driving to the theatre and paying my money than his name.
I like her explanation regarding being interviewed in English & the difficulties it has presented. That might be why some find her off-putting.
Noomi hasn’t. I think the English thing is an easy pr magic wand to dismiss her earlier faux pas.
Love the bangs. She’s so pretty!
The wig or more accurately the wiglet is a horrible attempt to make her look edgy. Also, way too much bronzer and fake tan. Some of the non- LV clothes are cute.
Hmm, a lot of it sounds like her PR person wrote this for her. I can almost see the notes on the PR intray: mention ballet background and market her as a physical, tough actress check. Write smart PC thing about trans movement check. I doubt those words came out of Alicia’s mouth, they sound too thesis esque. Everything in her interview sounds carefully calibrated and not from the heart.
Regardless of whether her relationship with fassbender is real, the fact that she milks it so much is disturbing. I somehow doubt this relationship is real though. Fassy and her seem to have chalk and cheese personalities.
Haha I feel this way too. Makes us really cynical about the world, always picking things apart.
I too find it full of carefully formulated PR. Not that it’s something unusual, but this is just too sleek.
I wonder what her ballet professors would have to say about her. She complains a lot about how terrible those years were. Maybe if she had been successful in ballet like she is in Hollywood she would sing another tune.
I did modern dance for many years and like when people lift the veil to show the reality of that world. The eating disorders, the mental and sometimes physical abuse and more that occurs in ballet really needs to be addressed head on. Those who are successful in it can’t talk about it for fear of being black-listed. So you are right in that if she made it, she would have kept it a secret. Just like Scientology, the world of child actors, drug abuse to get ahead in Ivy League colleges etc.
To be a professional ballerina just like being a professional athlete means sacrificing your health and personal life and living in constant pain for many of them. With ballet dancers I don’t think there are any exceptions to that at all. What was shown in Black Swan was not far from the truth, actually I think the truth is worse.
The standard ballet hours are something like this – 2 hours of class, 6-8 hours of rehearsals and then the evening performance for 3 hours, every day, no weekends, for as long as you work. The best of them do even more than that, what I described is just the official baseline.
There is something about her,perhaps this ‘over confidence’ which I find annoying .
As Carrie Fisher would say she came up trumps in the gene pool ,but there is a way of carrying yourself ,especially when new,with a little humility
She will wear out her welcome otherwise.
Why is it only women are told to be more humble and hide their confidence? If she were a man it wouldn’t even register.
Take Oscar Isaacs for example, he oozes self confidence and has a very direct stare, nobody tells him to be more humble, women love him.
yeah, ridicukous. Carrying herself with humility? Are we back in the 19th century?
My observation is not that she should not be confident ,but the air of overconfidence into arrogance is there.
Being modest about your talents allows an easier acceptance by many
In your face attitude gets people nowhere in the long run
Nothing to do with 19 Century,more like 21 Century intelligence …
Some people are all confidence and nothing to back it up with..
There is confidence, and there is arrogance. Oscar Isaac oozes confidence, Alicia the latter. And arrogant guys get called out too, like that one blond dude whose name escapes me… Alex Petty? Something like that. Even Edward Norton has suffered from his arrogance, and dude actually has the talent (and some would say the looks) to back that arrogant attitude. So no, it’s not sexism. It’s just her.
Thank-you Dani
Bangs reminded me of Audrey Hupbern. I don’t know if that is what they were going for. In this shoot she has the same gamine look. Her looks are very versatile.
Fassbender – I think she doesn’t have enough experience and doesn’t know how to navigate the minefield of the personal questions yet. That is all I see. Especially given that Fassbender is not such a great catch. It is a fling for both of them at a time when she is too busy for s serious relationship. But the grief she is getting for it makes me think that it isn’t even worth it. Who needs all this additional drama.
A) How come no one ever criticizes her for that fake ass POSH British accent? It is so noxious.
B) You either talk about your personal
life or you dont. Stfu with the hints and off the record name dropping. Pick a side and stay on it.
C) You also cant want to be famous and ambitious for fame and to have multiple films in Oscar contention and love being in front of cameras (all things that she has said) AND be fearful of celebrity and fame. Give me a damn break. 🙄
D) This interview was done the first week of Oct so she could be single by now.
PREACH
Finally someone mentions the accent! Seriously what the fuck is that?? She is so fake and thirsty
I have a v good friend here who is Swedish lived in London for years and other Swedes here but their accent is pretty neutral. I think once you are an adult hard to change your accent unless you are Gillian Anderson or you make a big effort to. I liked her in Ex Machina but haven’t really seen her in other stuff.
Well, English isn’t her first language, so how do you decide that her English accent is “fake”? I learned to speak Spanish in part from watching Almodovar films, so I tend to speak it with a Madrid accent. Does that make my accent fake? Because when you learn a second language, you just mimic what you hear and do your best to speak “correctly”, whatever that means!
^This.
Swedes (such as myself) who learn English as a second language get Swedish accented English. I thought I had fairly accent free English but have been told by American friends that I do have a bit of a Swedish accent. Certain pronounciations do not come naturally to us so if we want an American or British accent we have to work for it. I assume that is what Alicia has done.
Yes this Tiny Martian! She had to pick up a more universal language if she was going to be international, so what’s wrong with the form she picked up? My gosh people berate this girl. I remember when she first started getting posted on here and I thought oh I love her!, people on here were saying: She’s Swedish?! She doesn’t look Swedish! And now everyone is complaining about her addressing that?! Holy cow, it’s a lose-lose. I get not liking someone’s personality or acting but geeze.
Right? It’s pretty rich criticing someone’s accent “as fake ass POSH British accent” if the person is not a native speaker.
I grew up speaking strong Austrian dialect, so not even my German (= the same language) is accent-free. And of course you can hear my Austrian accent if I speak a foreign language.
Some people should really get off their high horse.
Absolutely. She should sound like the Swedish chef.
(Would you make the same comment about Alexander Skarsgard’s ‘fake’ American accent, I wonder?)
For how long is she going to keep on using Fassbender’s name for recognition? Her fans say that she doesn’t need him for fame but obviously Vikander and her team think otherwise because she’s milking him like crazy. It’s not cute, it’s not fun and it’s getting ridiculous.
I always interpret “I don’t like her but I’m not sure why know ” to mean “I don’t WANT to like her but I can’t come up with a legitimate reason not to.”
+1
Yep that’s it.
No, sometimes you instinctively dislike someone and wonder why. And sometimes you like someone immediately, for no apparent reason. It’s instinct, chemistry.. whatever you want to call it. But it’s real.
I like her and think she’s pretty, but my God the cover is terrible.
How boring would that article be without mentions of Fassbender
Fassy strikes me as a slimier George Clooney in that he likes the younger females on his arm for a year or two and moves on when the current squeeze seems to start thinking it’ll get serious and she’ll be “the one”. IF he settles down, and that’s a big if, I imagine it’ll be with someone more age appropriate and someone he sees as equal or true partner material. She is suffering from “it’ll be different for me syndrome”. Someone needs to send her a copy of “he’s just not that into you” stat.
Exactly. I don’t think that Fassy is as bad as Clooney but he definitely hasn’t found his match yet. I think he’ll eventually fall in love and marry and it’s not going to ba starlet but a woman of equal stature, secure in herself and smart enough to make him chase after her for a while. Like my husband says: “you need to long for a woman to fall for her”
Fassy seems so disinterested in his Girlfriends and it just turns me off him. I only ever like him when he is with the X Men cast. He actually looks like he gives a fuck about them.
That’s so true! I like him best with James. You can tell they really like each other. I think that Mcbender is his best romance to date. 😉
He just isn’t ready to settle down. At least he is honest to all these women about it.
That is my opinion as well. He is never there for his women. Sure, he is open about it but so was Clooney and many other celebrities.
It doesn’t make it right because inevitably emotions and feelings get involved in long term relationships and somebody gets hurt. At least Leo doesn’t get involved in longer term relationships anymore. Gisele waited around for him and I think he hurt her. The same with Clooney and Stacy.
She seems more Rooney Mara than Anne Hathaway to me.
Rooney is very shy .
I have a neighbor who is a movie journalist in Belgium .He interviewed Rooney at Cannes fest and what he said about Rooney (“she looks cold but in fact she is very shy”)”
Interesting! She always seems pretentious.
Maybe im dense but how does she have trouble with a language barrier when she has been doing English speaking films? I understand not being able to translate certain words beacuse maybe a word in swedish doesn’t have a meaning in English, but she’s been able to do movies and other interviews with good translation. I think she is slow to warm and it comes across.
Yeah, you can’t claim to have a Swedish to English language barrier problem when you work in English and have been speaking it fluently since you were a child. Plus, as pointed out above, there is accented-English, and then there is (perfectly) posh accented-English. This girl wants to have her cake (phony accent, thirst for fame, critical darling boyfriend) and eat it too (poor me I don’t know English well, I’m shy and scared of the spotlight, I don’t talk about my personal life) with many things.
She didn’t say that she has trouble with a language barrier.
““I think I’ve been very self-conscious trying to express myself in a new language, and sometimes I don’t recognize the person that comes out,” she says. “In Swedish the filter between my thoughts and my language is much thinner, so things just flow.”
A journalist who interviewed her said that she still makes occasional grammatical errors though.
Do you live in a country different from one of your birth? And use a different language for work?
If not – you cannot judge. It takes more than 5 years to completely transition into the new language and even then you still get stuck from time to time.
There is much more to the language than just knowing the words, the grammar and the idioms. Much more.
I do. I live in a different country and english was not my mother tongue growing up. So I guess I can judge hehe.
I actually figured out from your posts yesterday that English wasn’t your first language The structure of the sentences was off and also the use of some words and how you used them wasn’t common for a native speaker , which proves my point.
I’ve lived abroad for over 20 years and I’m still much more comfortable and sophisticated in my native tongue. Language, however, is one thing but your personality is another. Your personality does not change with the language – you’re still the same person. I don’t buy her excuse, especially since she lives in London, her English is very good and she’s clearly very comfortable in it (much more so than for ex. Marion Cotillard who never used language barrier as an excuse when something she said didn’t come across well in an interview).
What was your point exactly?
And yes Alicia makes grammatical errors since English isn’t her first language but don’t blame language for her ideas. These were print interviews, they were edited for grammar mistakes and sent to her team for the thumbs up before they were printed. It’s not like the gave a live interview and had her words misinterpreted. So I’m thinking this language thing is a bad excuse.
“These were print interviews, they were edited for grammar mistakes and sent to her team for the thumbs up before they were printed. ”
It almost never happens.
Language is a means to express one’s own personality.I believe her when she says that she has been self-conscious and uptight trying to express herself.
I got so much crap thrown my way yesterday for a few critical comments about Alicia, but I see that Kaiser and others share my unease about her. That being said, the article makes me almost feel sorry for her. She clearly has many control issues (her showing up at the interviewer’s doorstep at 5:45 .. wow! ) and the ballet background, which I happen to know – tough as hell, competitive, rampant with eating and personality disorders. I’m not saying she had one but at least she was smart enough to go into therapy. From what I read about her emerges a picture of a very insecure but very competitive person, a perfectionist who doesn’t know when it’s time to quit, hence the constant references to Fassbender (though she clearly doesn’t need him to become famous and he sounds like he’s just doing the required part). I’m not going to comment on the Vogue cover – not my cup of tea though the clothes inside are very nice.
I hear you Minxx! I don’t see why you should be harassed for having a different opinion. I don’t harass people who like Alicia, I’m just saying I don’t like her and I think I am entitled to have a different opinion…
“and the ballet background, which I happen to know – tough as hell, competitive, rampant with personality disorders.” Maybe she should star in a ballet horror movie like Black (Face) Swan or Suspiria. We might see some personality come through. Her super thirst told me all of this a while ago. It’s sad and annoying.
So do you think they are serious or casual?
I think her and Fassbender are actually pretty serious. If they weren’t, I’d imagine we’d see them out and about with other people. Whatever they have going on, it appears to be pretty exclusive and then been together for what, almost two years? It’s interesting though, I stumbled upon a site with a lot of pap pics of the two of them; along with Fassy and some previous girlfriends. And I swear, the only ones he looked gaga over were Leasi Andrews and Nicole Beharie. But I will admit that in some of the pap pics and fan photos him and Vikander look “cute” together.
I think it has been a year actually—I agree, the only ones he seemed wowsers over was Leasi and Nicole. This is why I have doubts it is serious in nature.
And guess who has a pictorial inside this particular Vogue magazine edition? None other than Kylie Jenner. Why Anna…why???
Anna from Vogue, some years back did a talk at one of the top university’s in England. One of the students question was about fame. Anna’s response was interesting. She stated that ‘we can make anyone famous’ and than she smiled ‘the problems comes afterwards, if they do not have anything to back it up’. Anna is not stupid she just goes with the flavour of the moment good or bad to sell her mag. I wish this actress well, but lets be fair, who the hell is she to be on the front cover of Vogue, looking a hot mess. Has she starred in a film that made BO history like Gone with the Wind etc. What has this actress achieved? apart from talking about her bf whom by the way is no prize. Her PR team need to be taken out at dawn and flogged, this actress needs media training and a stylist, she dresses like a old woman on the red carpet. Her team fails to see that its her youth which is her greatest asset.
As much as I want to like her and I want to, but I really don’t like her at all. Give me a break, she got some nerve to rub in our face about how “she can’t wait to be more famous” and now she is more famous she all of a sudden “anxious and shy” about it. This is such utter hypocrisy at its best. And even if you “fake humble” as most of many post are told, I rather the false modesty than little miss stuck up and arrogant “Twinkle toes”, who has her award recognition.
As for using Fassbender for her thirst for fame… I hope they are broken up and for good, because as much as he is good looking and she is a pretty woman who looks like a little girl, I want to know what the hell was he thinking dating an aloof, snob like Alicia Vikander. And don’t get me started about language barrier because I think her English is fine being POSH and all.
She’s just using the language barrier as an excuse for the previous years that she tried to be popular but didn’t make it
She carries the baby bangs off well. They are not for everyone and mostly should be worn by the very, very young, if at all.
Seriously? She is good looking but this cover/photoshoot is killing her. She looks horrible
I like you Kaiser, but you do know you have an absolute anti-bangs fetish, right? I want to photoshop bangs onto famous people through history for your holiday card…Did you hate Audrey Hepburn’s baby bangs?
Interesting bit about being celebrity. I dont think she will ever go to the other side and will be recognized on streets and people would stop her, stare and ask for autographs. She has this face that even I would not recognize on street. Even through I read entertainment sites.
No matter how critics will try to push her in our faces. She wont be big star among ordinary people . Fassbender was around for few years. And did few blockbusters. And was in press all the time. And YET Sorkin did not know who he was.
They may nominate her for Oscars and talk about her but that Billy on the Street episode showed that people on the streets on New York didnt even knew or recognized Chris Pratt. You cant just make someone a star by hyping them on entertainment sites.
True. And they way she’s styled here makes her plainner (does this word exist?) than ever. If I go out I find at least 2 girls with the same face.
A real NYT journalist kept talking about him and Vikander ignored her questions. NUTBALLS is right. I’ve read another interview with the NYT and the journalist didn’t have any problem with her.
Well, I’m Finnish and live in Sweden and have Alicia’s precise skin and hair colour and brown eyes. It’s nothing very unusual and no, I don’t wear fake tan of any kind, nor do I have any mixed or biracial background. I too am rather sick of the blond and blue-eyed stereotype. Not true at all!
I get what she’s saying, in fact I think that she’s very precise and easy to follow. She sounds very typically Nordic to me in all her interviews and seems rather introspective and shy. Quite common among actors! Does not mean that you cannot be ambitious as well and do what you have to do to reach your goals. Including Vogue covers! An unusually fresh and modern Vogue cover by the way, most US Vogue covers are downright old-fashioned, so good for her. Love the hair and the clothes are to die for!
And yes, you can get therapy through school counselors and others or in any numbers of ways without your parents’ involvement. So she is definitely not lying. Regarding her relationship, in my view she’s free to be with whoever she wants to, and discuss it as little or as much as she pleases. I suspect she has received very little PR or media training – Swedes are not really into that sort of thing. Sounds like she’s worked really hard, but pure luck has surely also played a part and I think she’s well aware of this and still rather awestruck by what she has achieved.
Using Fassbender…AGAIN! Almost Blackface cover and spread. This is insulting.