Alicia Vikander says she’s ‘sad’ she won’t return as Lara Croft in Tomb Raider 2

Exclusive: ‘I had so much fun,’ Swedish actor said of 2018 film

Alicia Vikander has said she is “sad” she won’t be returning as Lara Croft in a Tomb Raider sequel.

Vikander, who can currently be seen in period drama Firebrand opposite Jude Law, played the video game character in the latest adaptation, which was released in 2018. It was a reboot of the franchise that starred Angelina Jolie in the early 2000s.

The film received middling reviews from critics, and it earned a lacklustre $275m (£228m) at the global box office, but Vikander received a large amount of praise for the role – so much so that a sequel was on the horizon with the Swedish star set to return.

However, when MGM lost the rights to Tomb Raider, the project disintegrated, meaning a confused Vikander suddenly lost the chance to return as Croft. In a new interview with The Independent series “Go to Bat”, in which stars discuss their most underrated credits, Vikander expressed confusion over the situation.

When The Independent said they “were sad” Vikander won’t be returning to the role, the actor replied: “Me too!”

Vikander said she would have “of course” returned for Tomb Raider 2 should the project have moved forward, adding: “I had so much fun.”

The Oscar-winning star also discussed working with her husband Michael Fassbender, with whom she has two children.

“Obviously he’s my best friend, my partner and love, and all these things, but I think he’s one of the best actors of his generation, so that feeling of getting to work with him and seeing him in action and having to go up against that – it’s sparring. It’s not a fight where people are going to get hurt, it’s not about beating anyone - but it is about pushing it.”

Elsewhere in the interview, Vikander said she was unsure how she ever shot sex scenes without the presence of intimacy coordinators, who were brought onto projects in the wake of Hollywood’s #MeToo movement.

“You can’t understand that you’ve gone to work before without them – it’s nuts,” she said, adding: “Very often, actors were just put in a room and a director was like, ‘Yeah, I want this,’ and then they let you do whatever. Obviously, that created the worst situations. It [was really tough] and I did a lot of them at a really young age early in my career.”

Alicia Vikander discusses her underrated film projects with ‘The Independent’ (IndependentTV)

Watch the full interview with Vikander here. Firebrand is in cinemas now.