Female actions stars can be hard to come by. Just ask Alicia Vikander, who plays the iconic Lara Croft in the upcoming Tomb Raider. Us Weekly spoke to the actress about representation of women in action films at the movie’s premiere at the TCL Chinese Theater in Hollywood on Monday, March 12.
Vikander is doing her part to give young women female actions stars they can admire. “I didn’t grow up having a lot of female action stars to look up to. Now we live in very different times,” she told Us. “In this film, I love the fact that she doesn’t have supernatural powers. I hope that it’s a young woman that a young audience can relate to.”
She elaborated on her character, “[I] feel that it’s OK to have doubts as she has, trying to find what her path in life is going to be. But she’s stubborn — she doesn’t take the easy road. She wants to create her own destiny. When she’s thrown out here on her first adventure, we really see her having to go through the pain and struggle. By experience she pulls out those famous traits, as she’s known for, and becomes the action hero that we so all know her to be.”
The Oscar winner, 29, takes over the role that Angelina Jolie originated in 2001’s Lara Croft: Tomb Raider. The film and its subsequent sequel made Jolie into a veritable action star.
Vikander has always wanted to be in a movie like Tomb Raider. That fact — and celebrity trainer Magnus — helped her overcome any physical challenges she faced during filming: “He kind of reminded me throughout the shoot that I’ve always loved these kinds of films. I’ve always looked at them as, ‘Oh, my God, that looks [like] so much fun. I so want to try and do that.’ Now I stood there as an adult and I get to do it, and to see the joy of it later onscreen and the edit of it all coming together is truly magic. It was tough, but it was so worth it in the end.”
Tomb Raider opens in theaters March 16.
Reporting by Nicholas White.
