Alicia Vikander: 'Romance is more important than marriage'

Alicia Vikander would rather dream up her own “romantic ideas” than fixate on getting married.

The Swedish actress has been dating German-Irish hunk Michael Fassbender, 40, since late 2014 and the couple was most recently spotted out together on a date in Paris on Monday night (03Jul17).

Both stars have kept their relationship relatively private, although in a new interview Alicia, 28, did share her thoughts on what being in love means to her.

“My parents were divorced when I was three months old and my father is happily married to his fourth wife, so marriage as an idea has never meant that much,” she shrugged to Vogue.co.uk. “For me, the word family means everything, that’s the true connection. And I think it's better to come up with your own romantic ideas because that’s what will give you wonderful memories.”

The brunette beauty has been busy with work as of late, recently wrapping filming on 2018’s Tomb Raider, in which she takes over the role of video game heroine Lara Croft made famous by Angelina Jolie.

Production presented plenty of challenges for Alicia, all of which she accepted – even if some were more difficult than others.

“During one scene I was thrown into a river of ice cold water fifty times with my hands tied,” she explained. “It had to be continuous, as they didn’t have time to dry me off in between because that’s when you risk getting hypothermic. My family and friends laugh now because I’m thrown into freezing water at some point in all my films!”

Alicia certainly wasn’t worried about suffering any injuries on set though, noting she’s more drawn to a script and story than the physical demands of a project.

It helps that the Jason Bourne star was a big fan of the original Tomb Raider franchise while growing up, noting of her feisty alter ego Lara, “I’d never seen a female protagonist in a game before and I was struck by her great will power and intelligence, and she’s extremely fierce with an instinct for survival.”