This summer, she’s enjoying her first break from filming in two years, with time to cook for friends, and to make finishing touches to her home. She has also spent a week on a yoga retreat in Costa Rica (LOL), where the monkeys woke her up at sunrise and she learned how to meditate again...
Although chatty and open with a raucous laugh that at one point brings the whole coffee shop to a halt, Vikander dislikes talking about her private life – especially relationships.
She met Michael Fassbender, 38, while filming The Light Between Oceans in Australia and New Zealand last year, and says there are so many photographs of them out there now that it is pointless to deny they are a couple. It must be hard, particularly in those fragile early weeks and months of a new relationship, to have it dissected so publicly, accompanied by photographs of moments you’d thought were private. She knows it comes with her job and says she thought she was prepared for the attention – but it was still a shock to meet up with friends, then days later see a picture of you all, sitting outside a café, splashed across the media.
“You realise that someone was there, watching, while you were having a coffee with your friends. And you just feel violated,” Vikander says. “It’s a strange feeling. But also, I totally know how privileged I am to be doing what I do, and it’s hard to talk about the downside because the upsides are so amazing.”
It’s different, she says, when she knows she’s going to be photographed at public events, when she’s prepared. ...