Alicia Vikander says she felt like an ‘imposter’ filming childbirth scenes before she was a parent

Alicia Vikander has revealed that she felt like an “imposter” filming scenes in which she pretended to give birth before she’d experienced it in real life.

The Tomb Raideractor said she had given birth “four times on screen” before ever doing it herself.

“Our job is to pretend as an actor, but every time I had to give birth, I said to every woman on set, ‘I’m sorry,’” she told Elle in an interview. “I felt like such an imposter.”

The Ex Machina and The Danish Girl star married fellow actor Michael Fassbender, 47, in 2017 and gave birth to their first child, a son, in 2021.

Vikander, 35, confirmed in the same interview that the pair had welcomed a second baby earlier this year.

“All women have such different experiences, and going through it a second time was definitely harder for me,” she said of the birth.

“But I think training made it easier. Going through those nine months is like a marathon, so it does help if you’re strong going into it. It’s so physically demanding, and I have so much admiration for any woman who has done it.”

Despite being very private about her personal life, the Oscar-winner told The Sunday Times in 2022 that she and Fassbender had gone through an “extreme and painful” miscarriage before becoming parents for the first time.

“We have a child now, but it took us time,” she said.

“[The miscarriage] was so extreme, painful to go through and, of course, it made me recall making that film,” she added, referencing The Light Between Oceans, a movie that the pair had starred in, in which the central couple suffer several miscarriages.

Of finally becoming a mother, Vikander previously told People: “I now have a whole new understanding of life in general.

“That’s pretty beautiful, and obviously will give a lot to any of my work in the future.”