Fassbender Will You Work With Alicia Again No Scared of Her
Alicia Vikander and Michael Fassbender are a public couple. She kissed him, after all, earlier accepting her Oscar for The Danish Girl concluding February. Only they'll never be accused of oversharing. Neither is agile on social media, and on the hot Dominicus afternoon when EW interviewed them in downtown Manhattan, Vikander, 27, and Fassbender, 39, sit down on opposite ends of a couch. And though they do accost their relationship, calmly and efficiently, they would much rather talk about their work.
That still includes the experience that brought them together. Adapted from the 2012 novel by Australian author K.Fifty. Stedman, The Light Betwixt Oceans, directed by Derek Cianfrance (Blue Valentine, The Place Beyond the Pines), stars the two actors as a married couple living on a lighthouse-capped island who endure multiple miscarriages before a rowboat mysteriously washes ashore i day with a babe on board. Isabel (Vikander) convinces her hubby Tom (Fassbender) to keep the newborn kid as their own, but it's an agonizing decision, especially when he encounters a bereaved woman (Rachel Weisz) on the mainland whom he suspects is the daughter's mother.
In an engaging interview, Vikander and Fassbender take a journey back in time — both to the 1920s, when the film takes place, and to 2014, when they met and vicious in love while making it.
Credit: RICHARD PHIBBS for EW
ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY: Everybody saw you both at the Oscars this year, where Michael was nominated for Steve Jobs and Alicia won for The Danish Girl. But The Light Between Oceans was filmed earlier either of those movies. Does it feel like a long fourth dimension ago?
ALICIA VIKANDER: Well, at least for me, The Danish Girl was one of the fastest post-productions I'd been through in my career. Jason Bourne might vanquish information technology, actually. But other than that, Testament of Youth, Ex Machina, those films came out more than two years afterward they were shot. That'due south more common. But unremarkably the feel flows back to you as soon as yous reunite with your friends. We only saw Derek [Cianfrance], who I hadn't seen for a couple of months. We take a lot of experiences and memories to go dorsum to.
Michael, Derek said that he basically wrote the part with you in listen.
MICHAEL FASSBENDER: That'south squeamish, yes. Well, I guess he got the part off the book, then maybe thought of me. I feel very flattered because I'grand very lucky to get to play a grapheme like Tom. I really similar Tom. I see him as sort of a hero to me, so to get the opportunity to bring him to life, I did feel quite a bit of responsibility. That graphic symbol is someone I would aspire to be.
You had the book but were in that location any other references you were looking at for Tom? With the mustache, there's a sort of Clark Gable classicalness to him.
FASSBENDER: Hmm, well we were looking at pictures.
VIKANDER: Of lighthouse keepers.
FASSBENDER: Yeah, of lighthouse keepers. Derek had sent some pictures, and there were a couple of them that had mustaches in in that location. And it'due south funny, the Clark Cable thing. I thought of Gone with the Wind. Our film is very unlike, simply I was e'er sort of reminded of that type of quondam-fashioned storytelling. Not but the fact that information technology'south obviously set up in a postwar period, in this case postal service-World War I, but a lot of the elements in it were like an one-time-fashioned movie.
We never run into any flashbacks, but the character is plain haunted by the war.
FASSBENDER: Tom's lived a whole other film before nosotros pick him up. And what he must have gone through in the fields of France. It was a very turbulent time in history, post-World War I. How that great war afflicted so many small towns all over the world. And you see a small town like Partageuse [the fictional Australian town where the story is ready], where a whole generation of men disappeared.
There'due south a clockwork emotional efficiency in the story. While it's tremendously pitiful, the film ends, and there's a sense of uplift.
FASSBENDER: Yeah, hopefully. That'south definitely what everyone was aiming for, including Stedman, if I may speak for her. At that place is a reason that we feel the way nosotros do by the end of the book and the end of the motion picture.
VIKANDER: And it's as well something with Derek's films. I felt with Blue Valentine and The Identify Beyond the Pines that I got so shut to these characters, I felt I could walk down the street and encounter them or refer to myself or people I know. And when both films stop, I totally think that these lives continue on. The uplifting thing is that at that place is such a large emotional draw, but yous don't demand to requite a large punch.
Were you lot drawn to the universality of the story?
VIKANDER: Yep, it got me. I almost felt a tiny bit embarrassed considering of being too close to something that'south very private in somebody'due south life. It'due south like there'south a window that's opened upward and I got to peek in. Simply anybody surrounding yous has gone through similar things. The search for beloved or the desire to have a family or the loss of a kid.
FASSBENDER: Or healing. Nosotros've all experienced how time heals. And you go along and life continues. It's and then interesting what Alicia said because you have Tom, who'southward lived through the state of war, and besides Isabel'due south character, what she was experiencing with the loss of all her brothers. And we come into these lives as they're in flux. And nosotros get out them once again, and at that place's a whole new generation that'south going to go through the next phase.
Practice you recall the story has whatsoever current political relevance?
FASSBENDER: Well, Stedman has cleverly put in this character Frank [Leon Ford], Hannah'southward [Rachel Weisz] married man. Information technology's such a terrifying thing when mobs of people go together and persecute foreigners. And what happens to him is he dies. And this is something we're dealing with a hundred years afterwards. This problem with migrants being able to integrate into societies and the dangers they confront are very existent. It's very relevant to today.
You mentioned Gone with the Wind, and Derek was telling me that when he was looking for Isabel, he said, "Get me Gena Rowlands in A Woman Under the Influence, get me Emily Watson in Breaking the Waves, and become me Vivien Leigh in Gone With the Air current. And he said he found that in you.
VIKANDER: Um, well. You just mentioned three of the people that inspire me to act. Equally an actor, I yet have to remind myself of daring to allow get and non to repeat myself. To make a film like this, I couldn't take done this without the people involved. The first fourth dimension I met Derek, of course I had already read the script and knew it was a claiming. But I also loved coming together him considering I admired him so much for being able to become all of those actors in his films. That shows also what a filmmaker is — bringing the right group together only also bringing out performances. I felt similar I had forgotten myself that I was watching actors, which is non an piece of cake thing.
You guys shot in a remote role of New Zealand. What was it like making a movie in that environs?
VIKANDER: On the first day of filming I got breathless. I was on the top of the lighthouse by myself and I could look out 360 degrees and non see another human being. I was kind of claustrophobic past the greatness of nature.
FASSBENDER: When the wind picks up, information technology's pretty exhilarating — and maddening. In the story, the previous lighthouse keeper goes basics and kills himself. That struck habitation to me. On the first few nights, we were in these caravans, and they were rocking back and along because of the relentless howling of the wind. And I was like, "Wow."
VIKANDER: I felt and then much a part of the elements of nature out there. I kind of wanted Mother Nature to just calm downwardly. One of the nights the storm hit, I thought that my trailer might just pitch over any second. It did jump a bit. I got quite scared.
Did interim in the elements brand things more difficult?
FASSBENDER: Easier, actually. It was a rare opportunity to feel that place, and that unique experience for certain lent itself to the pic.
VIKANDER: Like the scene when the storm is coming and you started to collect the sheep.
FASSBENDER: The goats.
VIKANDER: The goats, sorry.
FASSBENDER: Or was it sheep? I just remember those goats and those crazy chickens.
VIKANDER: For that night, the crew had prepared wind fans, but what you see in the film is pretty existent. We were practically flight off those lighthouse stairs. It was pretty nuts.
FASSBENDER: The DP [cinematographer Adam Arkapaw] maintains that lightning hitting a tree very close to where their campers were. And then that would take, plain, not been dandy.
Arkapaw has such an eye. The pic looks fantastic. You've worked with him a couple times, Michael?
FASSBENDER: Yeah, the first thing I did with him was Macbeth, then Light Between Oceans, then Assassin'due south Creed [in theaters this December] as well. He's an artist, definitely. A very special talent. Derek kept going, "Y'all're making my picture too beautiful, Adam!" He's got a great eye, and on all his works, True Detective, Top of the Lake. He'south a formidable forcefulness, that's for certain.
The movie is a wrenching piece of drama for both of yous, particularly Alicia. What was the hardest scene to film? The 2nd miscarriage is devastating.
VIKANDER: That was the scene I was most worried near, yes. I think I've played a mother half-dozen times. And equally a adult female who doesn't have kids, I felt that the women in the audience who have gone through childbirth might say, "She doesn't know what it is." So I asked a lot of women, to brand certain we told that scene with truth.
Michael, that'due south also a very affecting scene for your character, as he shows the depth of his compassion for his wife.
FASSBENDER: He's got absolute loyalty. There's also a scene that's not in the movie anymore where she tries to throw herself off the cliff and he saves her. Everything's on a knife'south border, and he's concerned for her well-beingness.
He'southward kind of a repose, passive man for an actor like you to play.
FASSBENDER: His principles are strong. He knows information technology's incorrect when they don't written report the kid, and he knows that it'south only going to end in tragedy. He'south an honorable man. He's got dignity and stoicism and principles. If there were more people similar him in the world, information technology would be a improve identify.
When yous're playing lovers on screen and you begin to accept feelings off screen, practice you lot have to check yourself — to be sure it isn't a fob of your brain?
FASSBENDER: It wasn't the kickoff time in a picture show either of united states of america had played somebody who is falling in honey. There is an element of separation there. If I'm playing a murderer, I don't go out and start murdering people.
VIKANDER: And I think we've made a articulate statement that nosotros proceed sure things only between us. It was very easy to unite, but that's quite personal.
And I respect that. I'1000 non interested in asking all virtually your personal lives.
VIKANDER: [Laughing] Certain!
FASSBENDER: [Laughing] Sure, buddy!
Only here's what I'k interested in. Y'all've really managed to go along your private lives private. A lot of people in the spotlight don't.
FASSBENDER: But that'south other people. Each to their own. I'm not going to talk nearly my private life with a full stranger, unless I feel like I need to. Why would I? I don't.
Merely can you recollect a time when you were curious to know more well-nigh the private lives of motion picture stars? That'southward the impulse in your fans to know more than about your human relationship.
FASSBENDER: I might take been curious about actors' lives when I was growing up. That'southward human nature. We're all curious nigh a lot of things. But my marvel didn't obligate them to tell me. It's the worst thing if you're sitting in that location in the theater, going, "Oh, that'due south the guy who dates this person and likes to exercise this in the morn and that in the afternoon." So you lot're just watching a brand, equally opposed to an actor.
VIKANDER: I remember in Sweden, I used to set the warning for two or 3 a.m. and get up with my mom to watch the Oscars. Simply for me, that was the same as the stories I saw up on the moving-picture show screen. Things accept changed with social media and engineering, but I still feel it helps when I know less almost the actors I look upward to. That's what I mean — I love the mystery behind information technology all.
FASSBENDER: Exactly. The actors I looked up to when I was a teenager, they all merely disappeared into different characters.
Who were the actors that yous looked upwards to?
FASSBENDER: All the usual suspects. Gene Hackman, Al Pacino, Robert De Niro, Meryl Streep, Brando, John Cazale.
Yeah, I don't think of Hackman or Pacino and wonder near their personal lives.
FASSBENDER: Information technology was a different fourth dimension. Nowadays of class everybody's got phones and cameras.
VIKANDER: Fifty-fifty people who don't have the jobs we do. I've been asked a lot of questions because I'1000 non on social media. Simply I did try Instagram when it came out, and I call back, merely with my friends, feeling similar I had to post things. And that was before I was really in films. And I know it involves a lot of other people who are non in the public heart. Just it'south a pressure that yous kind of accept to exercise information technology. If yous like it, so information technology's great. And I practise have a lot of friends who exercise communicate and express themselves and present their fine art through those mediums. That's but the manner we're moving ahead. But I think you need to do what feels correct.
Do either of you read reviews of your movies?
FASSBENDER: Unfortunately, yes. This fantastic actor Mel Smith, God residuum his soul, we did a play together in 2005 or 2006, And he said, "Live by the sword, die by the sword." Usually you just call back the negative ones.
VIKANDER: Yep, again, it'southward only human nature. You tin can hear a hundred nice words nearly yourself, and you'll but remember the i bad one.
There's an Ingmar Bergman movie chosen Shame, funny enough. A childless couple is on an island, isolated from the rest of the world, played past Max von Sydow and Liv Ullman. Something nearly ii of them reminds me of you two.
FASSBENDER: Well, maybe that's considering the story exists in such a primal place. Like I say, ordinary people dealing with real-life tragedies. How many people have this sort of scenario touched? Trying to have a family unit, and they're having miscarriage after miscarriage. Information technology struck me as a very existent problem at a time when a lot of films are really fantastical.
You've been in some of those.
FASSBENDER: Aye, I've been in a lot of those. Merely this was just something that was relatable all over the world. There wasn't some villain and good guys. But regular people. The fact that I hadn't played somebody like this very much interested me in doing it. Information technology'southward a difficult thing equally an actor not to echo 1's self. I try my all-time to find variety in what I'thousand doing, but at that place'south a lot out there that'southward the aforementioned.
Alicia, do yous think that Isabel stayed with you lot, some echo or shadow of her?
VIKANDER: Well I estimate and then because she's an imagination of something I've had in my head. People can relate to reading a book for the starting time time and the world starts to create, even without yous prepping for information technology. I get excited and start forming it in my caput. And I bring with me the experience of shooting the film more than the character staying within me. I create her and I so I leave her.
Do y'all consider yourself a method thespian?
VIKANDER: No, I don't. In this motion picture, particularly, we all knew what needed to be done to bring authenticity to the story. It was a big emotional journey. Then a lot was almost stepping out in betwixt. Not just of the film, but in betwixt takes and on days off. Get play some music or accept a squeamish nap. And it was a great vibe on ready, because nosotros all stayed out there and had barbecues in the evenings.
What's the first thing that comes to mind about the experience of making it?
VIKANDER: It'due south what Derek said when I first met him. In our first coming together, Derek said firmly, "I expect you to fail for me, and I await you to surprise me." I was up for that challenge. And in exchange, he said, "I'k going to give you some cool experiences." And that's what he did. "Summer army camp" is something I've used to explicate filmmaking to friends and family unit. Information technology's the best feeling when you all accept shared this experience together.
FASSBENDER: You accept to come together very speedily. Get a family unit, work together, and and so you lot disband. That's a very specific, unusual thing to this concern. And I can be a very powerful matter besides.
VIKANDER: I promise I get a bit of that from each chore and experience. I didn't become to theater school. So I've been extremely privileged. I've had the chance to work with some really good filmmakers. It's put me in a state of affairs where I've been surrounded by great actors, and for me it's been a lot virtually standing in the background and watching people work.
What are you favorite performances of each other'southward?
VIKANDER: Back dwelling house in Stockholm, in this tiny independent cinema, I had watched Hunger [2008] and Fish Tank [2010], and I was blown abroad past his fearlessness. I was taken aback by how much I believed those characters. They felt so real. From then on, I said, "That is one of the smartest, most surprising actors working." He went to the summit of my list of best actors of my generation when I saw him, which was especially interesting because he was a male histrion, and a lot of the actors I wait upward to, naturally, are women.
And Michael, what have yous admired in Alicia'south career?
FASSBENDER: When Alicia arrived on set up, I said to Derek, "Wow, I'grand frightened because she's simply so fierce and dauntless and she had that hunger besides." Information technology reminded me of when I was trying to intermission through and become opportunities. It was then visceral, and information technology was pretty amazing to behold in her. I wasn't familiar with her work. But you tin can tell immediately when somebody has all the goods and more. Then we watched Pure [2010, Vikander'due south debut pic], and I was very impressed by her originality on screen and how she wasn't afraid to make ugly choices. That was a existent understanding.
What she did in The Danish Girl [2015] was so fresh and modernistic. Gerda exists in the fourth dimension of the moving picture, but she also seemed similar a very modern concept of a adult female. The mode she moved physically, that comes from her dance background, it's very articulate to me.
Her trip the light fantastic toe background, I would recall, also contributed to the success of Ex Machina.
FASSBENDER: In Ex Machina [2015], it'south all over that. Her specificity and attention to particular is extraordinary. I played a robot [in 2012'southward Prometheus], and I thought I was a good robot, but then I saw her and I said, "In that location is a very skilful robot.'
VIKANDER: Oh, thank you.
FASSBENDER: Simply I just finished the sequel [next year's Conflicting: Covenant], and I got to steal all of Alicia'southward moves. I'll steal everything. She makes me a ameliorate robot.
Exercise you want to work with each other again?
FASSBENDER: Yeah hopefully, downwardly the line. At the moment I'm not looking to practice anything really.
VIKANDER: [Laughing] Do you lot need some fourth dimension off?
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The Light Betwixt Oceans
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Source: https://ew.com/article/2016/09/02/michael-fassbender-alicia-vikander-light-between-oceans/
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