leap of faith

I WANT TO BE HER, MOMMY!” shouts an elated little girl standing in a cluster of kids who have gathered spontaneously in Forsyth Park in Savannah, Georgia. With heads craned towards the sky, they are gobsmacked, rooted in place as if they’ve spotted a bona fide superhero. And in a way they have. On the crisp but sunny Saturday morning of her BAZAAR cover shoot, Alicia Vikander is literally floating on air, pirouetting with balletic grace in a Louis Vuitton gown 15 metres above the mossy green. The Swedish actor seems preternaturally at ease and visibly in control, often calling the shots — politely — to the stunt co-ordinators and photography crew from midair.

Remaining nonplussed in the face of extreme bodily risk is all in a day’s work for Vikander, who has made a career out of shape-shifting seamlessly into radically strong female characters in thoughtful indie films and commercial blockbusters alike. Onscreen and in person,