Alicia Vikander Never Thought She'd Make It to the Oscars

The actress took home the Best Supporting Actress award.

ByABC News
February 29, 2016, 8:30 AM

— -- When Alicia Vikander was growing up in Sweden, the Academy Awards were must-see TV for her -- never mind the time difference.

“Yeah, I would put the alarm clock on at 2 a.m., and that was what I did for years. It was a way to celebrate from a distance what I loved the most. Film. And the people making them,” she said.

Vikander is now one of those people. Last night she won the Best Supporting Actress Oscar for her role in “The Danish Girl.”

Her parents were among the many people she thanked.

“I would never have believed them if they told me,” the 27-year-old actress told “GMA”’s Lara Spencer in a backstage interview at The Dolby Theatre following her win.

Vikander said it was her actress mother who introduced her to acting from a very young age.

“I was so happy to have her here,” she said.

Spencer also asked Vikander about her yellow gown -- which set the Internet abuzz when she hit the Oscars red carpet.

Vikander said she was unaware of the attention her dress had attracted, but told Roberts that she adored the color and "felt great" in the dress.

“When I put it on, because I have had a few fittings and it didn't strike me then, but I put it on today I was like a 5–year-old," she said, adding that she felt like "Belle from ‘Beauty and the Beast.’”

In addition to her parents, Vikander also thanked her “Danish Girl” co-star, actor Eddie Redmayne.

"You raised my game," she told him in her acceptance speech, later explaining to Spencer: "He’s an actor who in the moment in the sense pushes to go [in] new directions, so you’re always yourself have to challenge him back and that makes it interesting, because you do these scenes and by the end you’re like ‘Oh, my God,’ something happened there ... that’s what he brought in every scene that we did."