According to Daily Mail, Swedish actress Alicia Vikander has gotten a new role, the female lead in the upcoming film “Tulip Fever”. The part was meant for British actress Keira Knightley, a star Vikander is now compared to.
After successes like “A Royal Affair” and “Anna Karenina”, Vikander will now sink her teeth into the film adaptation of Deborah Moggach’s novel “Tulip Fever”, which takes place in Amsterdam during the 17th century. Alicia will play Sophia, a woman who has a forbidden affair with an artist hired by her husband to paint her portrait. Harvey Weinstein is set to produce the film, and director is Justin Chadwich, but according to the website Up and Comers, it is thanks to Alicia that the project now will take off.

The 2000 novel, Deborah Moggach’s "Tulip Fever” reads like a thriller—It explores human relations at their worst. According to Goodreads: In 1630s Amsterdam, tulipomania has seized the populace. Everywhere men are seduced by the fantastic exotic flower. But for wealthy merchant Cornelis Sandvoort, it is his young and beautiful wife, Sophia, who stirs his soul. She is the prize he desires, the woman he hopes will bring him the joy that not even his considerable fortune can buy.
Cornelis yearns for an heir, but so far he and Sophia have failed to produce one. In a bid for immortality, he commissions a portrait of them both by the talented young painter Jan van Loos. But as Van Loos begins to capture Sophia's likeness on canvas, a slow passion begins to burn between the beautiful young wife and the talented artist.
As the portrait unfolds, so a slow dance is begun among the household's inhabitants. Ambitions, desires, and dreams breed a grand deception -- and as the lies multiply, events move toward a thrilling and tragic climax.

The film adaptation of the bestselling novel has been delayed over ten years due to production delays, script rewrites and financial problems. It was optioned by Ruby Films and Steven Spielberg's Dreamworks prior to publishing. Alicia Wikander seems the perfect choice for the young Sophia in the movie. In the meantime, we can look forward to seeing Alicia Vikander in the Wikileaks drama “The Fifth Estate” and the thriller “Son of a Gun” where she plays opposite Ewan McGregor. She also has a part in “The Seventh Son” with Jeff Bridges and Julianne Moore.