Alicia Vikander is a natural.
In E! News' exclusive behind-the-scenes look at the making of Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures' The Light Between Oceans, Vikander's vulnerability produces one of the most sweeping cinematic moments of 2016. According to director Derek Cianfrance, she wasn't initially allowed on set, as he wanted to capture her raw emotion after arriving on Janus Rock.
While her co-star Michael Fassbender was familiarizing himself with the set, painting the house and surveying the lush landscape, Vikander "was in a hotel room somewhere for the first week, just wondering what we had been doing," Cianfrance says in a featurette. "We brought her to set one morning in the dark, before the sun had come up, and she was blindfolded."
The set-up allows the audience to experience the scene along with Vikander.
"They had me walk into this shed with my eyes closed, not looking anywhere—I mean, it was pitch black anyway," the 28-year-old Academy Award-winning actress says. "They took me in there and they put me in my costume for the first time and my makeup, and then they just had me sit there." The assistant director told her to "'just look around'" outside. "You'll see Derek and the [director of photography]. There's a tiny crew somewhere. Just walk towards them and experience the island for the first time,'" she recalls the A.D. instructing her. "That's what I did."
The camera stayed on Vikander for 45 minutes. "I opened up the door, I ran up this hill as my character and I got to use her childlike excitement. Then I walked up towards the lighthouse, and on the other side of the hill, the sun came up maybe five seconds after I actually reached the top. I was just struck by it," she recalls. "I had never seen such a beautiful place in my life."
According to Vikander, "It's something that I will carry with me forever."
The Light Between Oceans, adapted from M. L. Stedman's 2012 novel, stars Fassbender as Tom Sherbourne, a World War I veteran who becomes a lighthouse keeper. He quickly falls in love with a local girl, Isabel Graysmark (Vikander), and they marry in 1921. Tom takes his wife to Janus Rock, an island on the edge of Western Australia, and they live happily in isolation until Isabel suffers two miscarriages. One day, a rowboat containing a dead man and a newborn washes ashore by the lighthouse. Fearing that the baby will be sent to an orphanage, Isabel persuades her husband to raise the child as their own—and with some convincing, Tom agrees.
Several years later, while visiting Isabel's hometown, the couple meets a woman named Hannah Roennfeldt (Rachel Weisz). She lost her husband and their baby girl at sea around the time the boat washed ashore with their daughter. Tom realizes that Hannah's missing child is their child, whom they named Lucy, leading Isabel and Hannah for possession of the young girl.
The Light Between Oceans is available Jan. 24 on Blu-ray and Digital HD. Additional bonus features include audio commentary and a "Lighthouse Keeper" featurette with the cast/crew.