Alicia Vikander, the Swedish actor who won an Oscar for her role in “The Danish Girl” in 2015, has taken on a remarkable range of characters in recent years – but is still stretching her boundaries, she says.

Speaking at the Karlovy Vary Film Festival, where she presented the historical drama “Firebrand” on opening night, Vikander says she’s now prepping for films that offer distinctly different challenges than her turn as Catherine Parr, the only one of Henry VIII’s six wives to outlive the marriage.

One character she admits she’s still deciphering is the central figure in the upcoming sci-fi feature “The Assessment,” a feature project with Paris-based writer/director Fleur Fortuné.

“I got the script sent to me,” says Vikander, adding that something about the story instantly intrigued her. Details are still under wraps, she says, but the film is set in a world of the near future in which the state decides who may have children. A couple is then notified that they are being considered as candidates to be parents.

Vikander, who will be half of the couple in question, according to reports, says Fortuné’s idea stood out from the stream of scripts she is usually sent.

“For Fleur it’s her first feature. But I got the script and I kind of knew. It was one of those things where I turned the page, then I met Fleur for the first Zoom.”

Vikander does her homework when considering a role, she says – “It’s like six months of my life.” What she learned about Fortuné’s work also intrigued her.

“I really had done like deep research. And she’s done a lot of short films and music videos and art work with a lot of very interesting people and she really has a clear voice. She’s really impressive.”

Fortuné, who has done wildly creative videos for Drake, Travis Scott and Skrillex, has also won over Elizabeth Olsen for “The Assessment,” which is being produced by Elizabeth Karlson and Stephen Woolley with Augenschein Filmproduktion and Number 9 Films.

“Quite instantly I just knew I wanted to work with her,” Vikander says of Fortuné. “And Lizzy Olsen, I think she’s really a terrific actress.”

While she can’t yet disclose extensive details, Vikander says, “It’s a pretty wild part. Even the producer says, like, ‘What are you going to do?’ And I said, ‘I don’t know yet.’ Which gives you a little insight.”

A key part of the appeal seems to be the challenge, says the actor, recalling how she’s shifted gears a dozen times in recent years from major action films like the 2018 “Tomb Raider” reboot to period dramas to Olivier Assayas’ HBO miniseries “Irma Vep,” about a conflicted star caught up in a dysfunctional production team trying to recreate a cult vampire classic.

“I’ve said a lot of times that I like to do parts that kind of scare me,” says Vikander. Fortuné’s concept fits the bill in that sense, she says. “I feel like I have not gone there before.”

Vikander confesses a passion for sci-fi projects such as the AI nightmare feature “Ex Machina,” which proved a breakout role for her in 2014.

“The Assessment” offers a similar dark view of where we may be going as a civilization, it seems. Vikander says it “has the sci-fi aspect in that it’s set in the close future and obviously it can bend certain rules. But when it comes down to it, it has some thriller aspects to it that I love in the genre. But it’s also quite an existential drama, with very human emotions.”

Vikander, who has husband Michael Fassbender and their toddler son with her in Karlovy Vary, says she’s in a place these days where she can be selective – and hold out for films that matter to her.

“My focus is more on the filmmakers and the people involved,” she says. “I really choose my projects based on the people I’m going to work with.”

Fassbender, whom Vikander met while filming “The Light Between Oceans” in 2016, will be onscreen opposite her again soon in writer/director Na Hong-jin’s dark fantasy “Hope,” another upcoming project.

“Besides my husband being one of my best friends, I think he’s one of the best actors of his generation. I’m super excited to work with him.”

Vikander confesses she still feels almost intimidated by Fassbender as an actor, especially when reviewing dailies of her performances. “If I’m home and sitting in our small cinema, that’s when I’m most nervous. When Michael’s going to see it.”

But Fassbender feels just as jittery about Vikander seeing his raw performances, she says with a laugh. “Obviously it’s work that we care about.”

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Ewan McGregor and Alicia Vikander will be the featured guests during the first weekend of this year’s Karlovy Vary Film Festival, where they will both receive the fest’s honorary President’s Award.

Alongside the celebrations, both actors will also present their most recent works. Vikander will bring her Cannes Competition title Firebrand, which will open the festival on June 30, while McGregor will host a screening of You Sing Loud, I Sing Louder.

Vikander began her artistic career training as a ballet dancer at the Royal Swedish Ballet in Stockholm and appeared in several stage productions and Swedish TV series before being cast in her breakthrough debut film role in Lisa Lansgeth’s feature Pure (2010). Since then, she has been best known for performances in pic such as Joe Wright’s Anna Karenina, Guy Ritchie’s The Man from U.N.C.L.E, and Alex Garland’s Ex Machina, for which she earned Golden Globe and BAFTA nominations. Vikander won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress in 2016 for Tom Hooper’s drama The Danish Girl.

Her latest pic Firebrand is a fictionalized story of Katherine Parr, the sixth and final wife of the tyrannical English King Henry VIII. Vikander plays Parr in the piece alongside an unrecognizable Jude Law, who suits up as King Henry. The pair debuted the film at last month’s Cannes Film Festival.

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Alicia Vikander attends the “Firebrand (Le Jeu De La Reine)” red carpet during the 76th annual Cannes film festival at Palais des Festivals on May 21, 2023 in Cannes, France.

MAY 21 | “FIREBRAND (LE JEU DE LA REINE)” RED CARPET DURING THE 76TH ANNUAL CANNES FILM FESTIVAL IN CANNES, FRANCE

Sunday night at the 76th Cannes Film Festival was all about the world premiere of the Jude Law and Alicia Vikander Henry VIII period pic Firebrand, which received a royal response from the crowd in the Grand Theatre Lumiere with an eight and a half minute standing ovation.

Brazilian-Algerian filmmaker Karim Aïnouz directed the movie off a script by Henrietta Ashworth and Jessica Ashworth. The pic reps Aïnouz’s English language debut and it’s playing in competition.

Firebrand stars Oscar winner Vikander as Catherine Parr, the final wife of Henry VIII, a feminist force to be reckoned with who outlived the notorious king; the fate of his wives being either divorced, dead or beheaded. She is named Regent with the king warring abroad, and she’s done everything she can to push for a new future based on her radical Protestant beliefs. Law plays a royal on his way out, having returned from fighting with a dire condition on his right leg. Palace intrigue abounds entailing Henry squaring off with the Seymours brothers, one of them having their eye on Catherine, and the king ultimately fading.

Aïnouz’s track record at Cannes includes Invisible Life, which won the Un Certain Regard award at Cannes in 2019, as well as, Mariner Of The Mountains which premiered in Cannes 2021.

FilmNation Entertainment handled international sales. Sony Pictures Worldwide Acquisitions will distribute in Germany, Greece, Iceland, Middle East, Scandinavia, Turkey, all of Asia (excluding Japan), Australia, New Zealand and South Africa. Other territories sold include Switzerland (Elite Film AG), Israel (Lev Cinemas), Spain, Italy and LATAM (Vertice Cine), and UK and Benelux (Black Bear Pictures).

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During a wide-ranging conversation for THR‘s Awards Chatter podcast at the Campari Lounge at the Cannes Film Festival, Oscar winner Alicia Vikander went through her career from her upbringing in Sweden and background in ballet to her Oscar-winning role in The Danish Girl and her latest film Firebrand, which will screen in competition at the festival.

Vikander’s big break in her native Sweden came with 2010’s Pure. She then turned heads in the 2012 Danish film A Royal Affair, co-starring with Mads Mikkelsen, but it was her role in Alex Garland’s Ex Machina that gained her notoriety in the U.S. “Everything that needs to be there, is there and nothing else. A lot of it you had to understand by reading the action and understanding what is happening in the scene emotionally,” she said of the Garland- written screenplay. For the self-tape audition for the film, she remembers pulling her hair back in a tight bun and putting “a full bottle” of sunscreen on her face in order to gain the shiny appearance of the robot, Ava, she would eventually play.

The actress earned an Oscar for her role in the 2015 film The Danish Girl, in which she plays artist Gerda Wegener, the wife of Lili Elbe (Eddie Redmayne), one of the first known recipients of gender-affirming surgery. “It’s incredible to see where we are now in comparison to when Danish Girl came out. My journey making TheDanish Girl was huge because I got to personally meet and become friends with so many people from the trans community,” said Vikander. “Obviously, with the way the conversation has gone now, that film probably would not have been that way now but it was one of the first steps. So, in that sense, it was an important one for the conversation.”

Following The Danish Girl, Vikander appeared onscreen with her now husband Michael Fassbender in The Light Between Oceans. She said, “He’s my husband and best friend but I also consider him one of the greatest actors of his generation.”

In between indies and awards season features, Vikander has also had her turn in the occasional blockbuster, including Paul Greengrass’ Jason Bourne, in which she starred opposite Matt Damon. She says she took the role because “I was a huge Jason Bourne fan,” adding, “It’s funny going to work when you are the fan.” Vikander also played Lara Croft in the latest attempt at a Tomb Raider movie, taking the role having played the computer game as a kid.

Her latest, Firebrand, which is screening in competition at the festival and hails from director Karim Aïnouz, sees Vikander star as Queen Catherine Parr, the final wife of Henry VIII, played in the film by Jude Law.

Vikander did a historical deep dive on Parr, noting that she has received less attention in history than the to the ill-fated first wives of Henry VIII. “No one really cared that she was the first woman in British history that published books under her own name,” said Vikander. Adding that she was “managing this danger and person next to [her] all the time. To survive that, you have to be very delicate and clever.”

In recounting her career, Vikander also spoke about the night of the Academy Awards at which she earned the Oscar for The Danish Girl. Vikander’s date that evening was her mother, who recently passed away. “Over the past few months, I have had tons of family and friends sharing photos,” she said, tearing up. “One of the most shared photos (was) of my mom and me that night.”

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In Britain, schoolchildren learning about Tudor history are taught a handy rhyme to remember the order of King Henry VIII’s six wives: “Divorced, beheaded, died. Divorced, beheaded, survived.”

Hollywood has for decades been transfixed by the “beheaded” and “died” bits — essentially, the stories about women suffering — but what moviegoers are rarely reminded of is the wife who outlived Henry. In Karim Aïnouz’s hotly anticipated “Firebrand,” it’s the notorious Tudor king’s final companion, Katherine Parr, who finally takes center stage.

“What’s mostly been dramatized are the wives who didn’t make it,” says Swedish star Alicia Vikander, who plays the surviving queen opposite Jude Law’s ailing monarch. “[When I read the script] I immediately thought, ‘Huh, isn’t it interesting that most people know more about the other wives.’ It’s almost like people are drawn to quite grim stories.”

The more Vikander, an Oscar-winner for “The Danish Girl,” read up on Parr and her experience, the more bewildered she became about the grisly narrative surrounding Henry VIII’s wives. “I was like, ‘How could [Parr] not be more known?’ Especially considering that, yes, she survived more years than the other ones, but she was also the first woman under her own name in British history to get published,” says Vikander.

The learned and curious Parr published a number of religious texts beginning in 1545. But as detailed in “Firebrand,” her quest for knowledge and passion for debate almost cost her her life when she was accused of heresy. Scholars beware: Aïnouz’s particular rendition of history has a revisionist edge that bestows the tired annals of history with a modern angle. (“It was about having artistic freedom to make a strong story and to surprise people,” explains Vikander.)

Ultimately, it was Aïnouz’s depth and vision that “drew [her] attention.” “I was in Cannes and I saw ‘The Invisible Life of Euridice Gusmao’ and I was so curious [about him],” says the actor.

“We didn’t grow up with British history in the same sense,” she says, reflecting on both their backgrounds — Vikander from Sweden, and Aïnouz from Brazil. This “outsider” status allowed for a new way of approaching the subject matter.

“If I were telling a very Swedish story, there may be a part of me that feels some sort of obligation to honor a story that feels like a part of my culture,” she explains. “It can be a good thing when you don’t have that reference as much, because you come from another perspective.”

The world of costume drama, however, is familiar terrain for Vikander, whose big breakout came with the 2012 Swedish film “A Royal Affair,” in which she played a young queen married to a mad king. That same year came “Anna Karenina,” which was her first time working opposite Jude Law, and then World War I drama “Testament of Youth.”

To better understand the Tudor period, Aïnouz recruited experts who had actually lived like Tudors for six months, though not in court but rather on working farms — a “very primitive” and decidedly unglamorous experience that’s also rarely seen on screen. “It made us want to strip back and make something that feels very raw and authentic,” adds Vikander. “I loved that he wanted to undress the costume drama.”

If the idea of a pared-back Tudor story set in the court of Henry VIII doesn’t quite jive on paper, rest assured it’s masterfully executed, but never heavy-handed: rather, it’s in the movie’s small details, such as Vikander’s Katherine rubbing coal into her teeth to look like a villager before sneaking out, or Law’s Henry bantering with his posse of advisors as though they’re in an episode of “Entourage.” “Firebrand” feels human in a way that many movies from the period have failed to.

Of working opposite Law in a role unlike anything he’s taken on before (the chiselled star completely disappears under Henry’s prosthetic jowls), Vikander highlights Law’s skill as a character actor. “I think more and more, he gets to have parts where he really gets to show that.”

Meanwhile, of her own artistic ambitions, Vikander says she’s less focused on Oscar-baiting roles and more concerned with who she’s in the trenches with. “Maybe it’s about getting old or growing up, but you go through stages and — especially when I became a mother — I [prefer] to work with people that I highly admire.”

Don’t count her out from leading another action franchise, though. Vikander says she was crushed when plans for the “Tomb Raider” sequel fizzled out. MGM lost the rights to the property in May 2022 as it hadn’t yet greenlit a new instalment.

“I mean, I thought we were very much [good to go]; we had a director and writer. But yeah, for me, that was another one of those childhood dreams — to portray an action character was awesome, and beyond what I ever thought I would do. And I think the physical part is something that I really enjoyed. So, yeah, if another opportunity like that came again, I’ll be interested.”

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