Alicia Vikander opened up about having a miscarriage, similar to her character in Irma Vep, in a new interview with London’s The Times, published on Sunday, July 24. While usually very private, the actress, 33, revealed that she had had a miscarriage when she and her husband Michael Fassbender, 45, were trying to have their baby together. She revealed how she was able to relate to her own characters who have had miscarriages onscreen.
Alicia spoke about her experience with the miscarriage and she likened it to what her character, who experiences two miscarriages, in The Light Between The Oceans goes through. The film featured both her and Michael playing a couple struggling to have a child. “We have a child now, but it took us time,” she said, per Us Weekly. “[The miscarriage] was so extreme, painful to go through and, of course, it made me recall making that film [The Light Between Oceans].” She went on to say that it gave the movie “another meaning.”
In Irma Vep, Alicia plays a singer who experiences a miscarriage and is told to keep on working, and she said that she felt like that aspect was very relatable for performers, who it’s hard to find time to “step away for a bit,” even after difficult life events. “There are times that myself or colleagues have been through something and, well, I can’t understand how they went on to the red carpet afterwards. To be met by people asking, ‘How are you doing?’ Given what they had just been through? Most people would not be able to step out of their house,” she said.
While she and Michael have mostly kept their relationship and their child private, the Testament of Youth star did reveal that the couple had their first baby together in a September interview with E! News. “I now have a whole new understanding of life in general,” she said at the time. “That’s pretty beautiful and obviously will give a lot to any of my work in the future.”