Alicia Vikander has a mantra. “When things are hard,” she begins, slowly, “I say, ‘Yeah, but it’s not tougher than ballet school.’” Alicia enrolled at the Royal Swedish Ballet School when she was 9 years old, and danced with companies until she was 19, which amounts to a childhood spent in permanent discipline.

“One thing you learn in a school like that, if it doesn’t break you, is that no one does for you.”

It’s a rather worldly lesson to have internalized as a child, but as preliminary training for Hollywood, you’d hazard the lesson was invaluable. Today, the 29-year-old Oscar winner still has the physical mannerisms of a dancer: she sits, back straight on her chair, legs crossed, occasionally grasping her feet and rocking from side to side. Her first English-speaking role was only “six or seven years ago”, and she speaks slowly and carefully, though it doesn’t seem like the uncertainty of the non-native speaker, but instead a deep-rooted thoughtfulness. CONTINUE READING

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