10 Things You Didn't Know About Alicia Vikander

6. She Used Her Dance Background To Pull Off Ava In Ex Machina

Without a doubt, the best thing about Ex Machina is Alicia Vikander's finely-tuned performance; the genius behind it stems from the way that she manages to render a character that feels both human and artificial in equal measure. Vikander's movements in the movie are so "perfect" - so conscious, if you will - that they feel too good to be true; artificial. And yet she manages to make us forget that she's artificial at the same time. It's a very masterful performance; elegant and beautiful and weird, all at once. So how did she pull it off, then? Writer/director Alex Garland credits it to Vikander's background as a ballet dancer:

"One thing that Alicia brought over and above her straight acting ability - and she is a phenomenal actress - is her training as a ballerina. That role involves quite a complicated physical performance where you are playing a machine, but you don€™t want to telegraph that you are a machine. You don€™t want it to be any stronger than a sense of otherness. That€™s something that a dancer who has trained in a particular way is suited to provide. It is such subtle things in terms of posture or the way you walk across a room. There is something about her training as a dancer that informs what she does and helps to elevate it."

And he's absolutely right: Vikander plays Ava with a grace that feels somewhat like ballet; like a robot trying to move the way a human being does, but doing it just a tad too well in the process, maybe. It offers up an extraordinary effect; Vikander's best role to date.