Alicia Vikander

“This worldwide spread of recognition is insane. I was brought up in a small country. If you made a Swedish film that just got into a film festival somewhere, that was like the biggest thing you could wish for.”

“I've never been able to lift my own weight, and the day when you have that capacity, it's pretty empowering!”

“I push myself hard. I don't like pain, exactly, but as a ballerina, I lived in constant pain. At ballet school in Stockholm, I remember we had a locker where if someone had been to the doctor and gotten painkillers, we divided them among us. In a sense, we were all addicted.”

“Being able to be dry in a second language is almost the last thing you learn.”

“I like not knowing about my favourite actresses and actors. I love seeing Meryl Streep up there and knowing so little about who she is outside of what she's playing on screen.”

“My Mother is an actress, so it's always been a part of my life.”

“I love crosswords! Actually, when I was growing up, me and my girlfriends would collect them and see who finished them first!”

“I do work very hard. I have been very colored by that education. I spent six days a week, seven hours a day training. That will always be the foundation of my work.”

“My mum used to tell me when I was a kid that I had to go to bed at 7.30 P.M., and when I'd ask why, she'd say, 'Well, you do get a bit grumpy when you don't have routines'. Then I realised, when I was a bit older, that's actually true.”