Alicia Vikander and Michael Fassbender quietly welcome second child after 'marathon' nine months

Alicia Vikander Alicia Vikander revealed in an interview this week that after a "marathon" nine months, she quietly welcomed her second child with her husband and fellow actor Michael Fassbender .

The actress sat down for Elle with fellow thespian Taylor Russell to chat all about acting and motherhood after the release of her film, Firebrand . The film, which was released in June this year, follows the life of King Henry VIII's sixth wife, Katherine Parr, and co-stars everyone's favorite heartthrob, Jude Law .

Taylor Russell, who is set to star alongside Alicia in the upcoming film Hope , gushed about the actress's impressive physical work after she "literally just had [her] second baby".

Alicia explained in the interview that, "All women have such different experiences, and going through it a second time was definitely harder for me."

"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."

The Swedish native first met her husband in 2014 on the set of their film The Light Between Oceans , before marrying in a gorgeous Ibiza ceremony in 2017.

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It wasn't until the pandemic when Alicia and Michael decided to start a family, she explained in the interview. "Leading up to now, there was Covid, and the [actor's] strike happened, and I stopped working for a while and had kids."

Before welcoming their first child , a boy, in 2021, the couple sadly experienced a devastating miscarriage. She told The Times in 2022 how difficult the loss was, especially in light of the film the pair met on.

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"We have a child now, but it took us time," she told the publication. "[The miscarriage] was so extreme, painful to go through and, of course, it made me recall making that film [ The Light Between Oceans ]. That film has another meaning now."

The film follows the couple's characters as they deal with the grief of two miscarriages on a remote island off the Australian coast. Upon finding an abandoned child, they raise it as their own until her biological mother shows up on the island looking for the baby.

© Antoine Flament

The 35-year-old explained to Elle how strange it felt to give birth on screen before experiencing it in real life: "Your 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.' I felt like such an imposter."

The notoriously private pair seem to be making it work as Alicia has a slew of upcoming projects and Michael just wrapped spy drama Black Bag alongside his co-star, Cate Blanchett.

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She told Elle how she juggles her family life and her career, saying, "I am preparing for two jobs at the moment, and I have come to a point where I'm finding the balance between work and having a family."

"I narrow it down to two things now – the people I really want to work with, and the projects that I feel are going to be a creative, joyous time. I am privileged that I have the choice of whether I work on these big things."