Oof, this Elle UK cover is sort of a crime against Swedish ladies. That’s Alicia Vikander, in case you can’t even recognize her. I did a double-take as well, although the editorial pics are much better. I have no idea why they chose this image for the cover. Alicia covers Elle UK because she’s promoting Firebrand, the historical drama where she plays Katherine Parr to Jude Law’s Henry VIII. Katherine was Henry’s sixth and final wife, and Parr was an accomplished woman for the era. An accomplished woman who was terrorized by her wife-killing husband. The big reveal in this interview is that Alicia gave birth to her second child with husband Michael Fassbender at some point, likely last year. She doesn’t even come out and announce it, but there are references to the second baby and second pregnancy throughout the interview. Some highlights:

Life with Fassbender: They have two children and divide their time between Lisbon, where they are based, and London.

She didn’t know anything about Parr: “I had this moment where I was embarrassed when I first read the script. I didn’t know anything about this woman. She was the first woman to ever be published in British history. How come I had never heard of her? I asked around my British friends and nobody knew that fact either. That’s quite a big moment in history for women! And so, I went back and read her books, which was so interesting because it was an incredible way of getting personal contact with someone who lived 500 years ago. To have Henry as her husband who, on a whim, just kills anyone he wants, including his wives, is such an emotional trauma. You realise how tough times have been, and the reality of women’s experiences in that.”

Working with Jude Law: “We found a lot of scenes difficult to do, and often it was some of these quieter ones, where the underlying fear was almost greater than in the physical scenes. Jude and I had a really good time working together. We wanted to tell a story about a marriage. It is extremely abusive and tragic, and she loathes him deep down, but she can’t leave him. I think, when he walks in, she is terrified of this man, but she has been with him for years by that point. We wanted it to feel like these are two people who know each other. And that’s when it can become more terrifying to watch, because there is a strange tenderness there that has formed from co-existing. We wanted to make sure we showed this relationship as a whole.

Finding work-life balance: “I have come to a point where I’m finding the balance between work and having a family. I narrow it down to two things now – the people I really want to work with, and the projects that I feel are going to be a creative, joyous time. I am privileged that I have the choice of whether I work on these big things… I’ve always had a plan B, too – I love interior design. That’s another passion: designing tables and chairs. And that takes away pressure from our industry, which can have moments when it’s tough. Leading up to now, there was Covid, and the strike happened, and I stopped working for a while and had kids.”

Her second pregnancy: “All women have such different experiences, and going through it a second time was definitely harder for me. But I think training made it easier. Going through those nine months is like a marathon, so it does help if you’re strong going into it. It’s so physically demanding, and I have so much admiration for any woman who has done it. I gave birth four times on screen before I did it myself. Your job is to pretend as an actor, but every time I had to give birth, I said to every woman on set, ‘I’m sorry.’ I felt like such an imposter.

[From Elle]

Just like with the first kid, personal details are sparse. It feels like they both felt burned out by Hollywood and the movie industry as a whole around 2016-17, so they started taking fewer jobs and started their family too. Their son was born in 2021, and then the second kid last year, probably? Anyway, I usually enjoy historical dramas but I’m not really feeling the descriptions of Firebrand. It sounds like such a huge bummer.

Photos courtesy of Cover Images, cover courtesy of Elle UK.