Alicia Vikander Landing Leads In ‘Light Between Oceans’ And ‘Danish Girl’

EXCLUSIVE: Swedish actress Alicia Vikander is getting two roles that all the brightest young actresses have been trying for. She is closing a deal to star with Michael Fassbender in the Derek Cianfrance-directed adaptation of the M.L. Stedman novel The Light Between Oceans for DreamWorks. At the same time, I hear that she is the choice of The King’s Speech director Tom Hooper to star opposite his Les Miserables guy Eddie Redmayne in The Danish Girl for Working Title. Her reps are right now working out the details so that Vikander can go from one film right into the other starting in the fall.

Vikander is the latest thesp in a wave of Scandinavian talent to break on these shores. Raised in Stockholm, Vikander began as a dancer before turning to acting. She’s gorgeous, but she is no overnight discovery; she has earned her way to this place. Her breakout roles were the Foreign Language Oscar-nominated Nikolaj Arcel-directed A Royal Affair, and co-starring in Anna Karenina, another Working Title production. Upcoming, Vikander stars opposite Ewan McGregor in Son Of A Gun, and is currently starring alongside Dane DeHaan and Christoph Waltz in the Justin Chadwick-directed 17th century love story Tulip Fever. She also stars in Testament Of Youth for BBC Films, which just wrapped, and opposite Oscar Isaac in the Alex Garland-directed Ex Machina and in the studio films The Man From U.N.C.L.E. and The Seventh Son.

The Light Between Oceans is the story of a lighthouse keeper on a remote island in Australia who with his wife rescues a baby they find in a rowboat and raise it as their own. David Heyman and Jeffrey Clifford are producing. The Lucinda Coxon-scripted adaptation of the David Ebershoff novel The Danish Girl is inspired by the story of Danish painter Einar Wegener and his wife, and the love they shared even as he became the first man to undergo a sex change operation in 1931. Working Title’s Tim Bevan and Eric Fellner are producing with Hooper, Anne Harrison, Gail Mutrux, and Linda Reisman.

Vikander is repped in the U.S. by UTA. She’s also agented by Actors in Scandinavia’s Laura Munsterhjelm, and managed by Angharad Wood at Tavistock Wood.