We chat with the Academy Award-winning actress, Bulgari ambassador and all-round Swede heart

There&#39;s no escaping Alicia Vikander these days; she is everywhere.&nbsp;In the last few years, the&nbsp;Swedish actress has dominated the silver screen with scene-stealing roles in Anna Karenina, Ex Machina, The Light Between Oceans (to name a few) and even clinched an Academy Award&nbsp;last year for her portrayal of Gerda Wegener in&nbsp;The Danish Girl &ndash; thus cementing her status as&nbsp;Hollywood royalty. And with no less than three films scheduled for release in the coming months &ndash; including the highly-anticipated reboot of Tomb Raider&nbsp;&ndash; Vikander is showing no signs of slowing down.&nbsp;

Despite her insanely busy schedule, the 28-year-old still found time for a brief&nbsp;sojourn&nbsp;in Singapore.&nbsp;The reason for her visit? <a href="https://www.lofficielsingapore.com/jewellery/bulgari-serpenti-form-exhibition-opens-in-singapore-artscience-museum-2017" target="_blank">Bulgari&#39;s historic SerpentiForm exhibition</a>, which opened earlier this month at the ArtScience Museum. L&#39;Officiel speaks with the brand ambassador on her relationship with Bulgari and her affinity for playing strong female characters onscreen.

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Left: Vikander at the 2017 Academy Awards wearing a Bulgari&nbsp;Divas&rsquo; Dream&nbsp;High Jewelry diamond necklace.

Alicia Vikander Academy Awards 2017 - LOfficiel Singapore.jpg

What attracted you to&nbsp;Bulgari?

I think it goes back to my mom being actress. I was lucky to be introduced to the world of cinema at a young age &ndash;&nbsp;cinema from different cultures and different countries. Unknowingly, Bulgari was introduced into my life from the beginning because it is a symbol of all the incredibly strong women I look up to such as&nbsp;Ingrid Bergman, Elizabeth Taylor, and Rachel Weiz. So when I was first&nbsp;approached by the brand, I&nbsp;felt very privileged. The first time I was invited to Rome by Bulgari,&nbsp;Lucia Silvestri&nbsp;(Jewellery Creative Director)&nbsp;took me into her office and showed me the story behind&nbsp;her creations. I loved the emotional connection she had&nbsp;with each piece&nbsp;and I could very much relate to that in my own line of work &ndash; the process of finding&nbsp;the personality and story behind each character I play.

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Is there a particular&nbsp;Bulgari creation&nbsp;that speaks to you?

The original&nbsp;Serpenti collection was the first defining&nbsp;jewellery collection&nbsp;that caught my eye. Many years ago,&nbsp;I met&nbsp;a woman was wearing a Serpenti bracelet&nbsp;and&nbsp;I could immediately recognise it; that&#39;s how iconic it is. I was recently in Venice for Bulgari&#39;s Festa collection and&nbsp;I absolutely loved its playfulness. That&#39;s how l want to approach my work. It&#39;s sexy and sophisticated but it&#39;s also similar to&nbsp;the way a child looks at world &ndash; bold and&nbsp;open to experimenting.

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Do you have a piece of&nbsp;jewellery that&#39;s of great&nbsp;sentimental value to you?

Sadly, I never got to meet my maternal grandparents but I was very close to&nbsp;my mother&#39;s aunt.&nbsp;She was Finnish and before she passed away two years ago at the age of 95, she gave me a bracelet made up of original coins from the Winter War in 1939. Each coin&nbsp;has&nbsp;a beautiful pattern carved into it and it&#39;s something I&#39;ll always treasure.

That&#39;s&nbsp;the beauty of Bulgari. When you acquire a piece of jewellery, it&#39;s the wish that you can pass it on to future generations. The longer it stays with you, the more history it gathers, and the more precious it becomes.

Alicia Vikander Bulgari Serpenti Form - LOfficiel Singapore.png

&quot;That&#39;s the beauty of Bulgari &ndash; when you acquire&nbsp;a piece of jewellery, it&#39;s the wish that you can pass it on to future generations.&nbsp;&quot;

You recently wrapped up filming for Tomb Raider.&nbsp;What&rsquo;s it like playing a strong female character such as Lara Croft?

I was first introduced to Tomb Raider when I was about ten years old. I went to my father&#39;s friend&#39;s house and his sons had the video game. It was the first time I had seen a strong female protagonist in a video game and I immediately understood&nbsp;the appeal.&nbsp;In essence, Lara is a young woman who continually pushes herself and stands up again even after she&#39;s fallen.

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Out of the many roles you&#39;ve played throughout your career, which one is the most memorable?

It&#39;s hard to say! There have been some films that were exceptionally wonderful to make but it&#39;s the process &ndash; not the&nbsp;end product &ndash; that I&#39;ll always carry with me. My first ever film role&nbsp;was definitely memorable. I&nbsp;was about to go law school after being rejected by theatre school twice when I got the part. To be able to&nbsp;step onto a set for the first time and get a proper feel of what it is to make a feature film&nbsp;is a feeling I&#39;ll never forget.&nbsp;

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All images courtesy of Bulgari.

Exclusive Interview: Alicia Vikander

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