Alicia Vikander explains Mira's wild Irma Vep ending and that brief kiss in the hotel hallway

Warning: This article contains spoilers for HBO's Irma Vep finale.

Hollywood and vampires: Two blood-sucking entities ripe for mining, and Alicia Vikander's Irma Vep dug deep into both during its run, which came to its shocking conclusion tonight.

The Oscar-winning Danish Girl and Tomb Raider actress teamed with filmmaker Olivier Assayas' for a meta meditation on fame, cinéma, and celebrity in the network's eight-part remake of his 1996 film of the same name. In both versions of the tale, the story revolves around a movie star living in France shooting a chaotic filmmaker's troubled adaptation of Louis Feuillade's classic black-and-white silent film Les Vampires — but Vikander's version ends on a much more personal note than Assayas' original, with A-list starlet Mira giving herself over completely to the spirit of the character as she both exorcises personal demons and exacts fitting revenge on the superficial, blood-sucking forces of Hollywood surrounding her.

Below, Vikander breaks down the finale's biggest moments, including that kiss between Mira and Regina, Mira's decision to skip the Dreamscape shoot, and how the whole series served as introspective therapy that brought Assayas closer to his ex-lover Maggie Cheung, who first played the titular character in his 1996 film of the same name.

Carole Bethuel/HBO Alicia Vikander in the 'Irma Vep' finale.

ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY: I've seen a lot of people talking about Mira traveling through walls. Do you view this as something that's actually happening or is it in Mira's imagination?

ALICIA VIKANDER: The beauty with anything like that is that part of me, it's the wrong thing to say, but it's like, I don't care. [Laughs] When I read the script, Alicia started to analyze these things, trying to define what's real and what isn't, but the interesting thing is when I was on set, if I ever had any doubt that I wasn't sure, as soon as I became Mira, it [went] beyond that…. I love the blend of, who knows if it's [real]? But that's Alicia talking again. For Mira, it just becomes. Emotionally, it's very real for her.

As we see it, Mira gets "vengeance" on people in an indirect way through wall traveling, as opposed to earlier, when she desperately confronted Laurie face to face. Now, she slinks into Laurie's room, steals the necklace Herman gave her, which gives the scene a personal charge versus the scene in the 1996 film when it's a random woman's necklace Maggie steals. Why is that more appropriate closure for Mira in her relationship with Laurie?

The magic becomes stronger the more Mira is okay with letting go and letting this character take over. She's taking the easy way, like she [now] has someone to blame. It's almost like, at a certain point, "It wasn't me." Mira uses the fact that "it's not me anymore," so "I don't have to explain why it happened, because I had nothing to do with it." It's the spirit of Irma Vep doing whatever she feels is justice, and Mira agrees it's a good thing that's she's doing.

I loved Mira's bond with Regina. Before Regina leaves to shoot her feature, it looks like they're about to hook up, but they only share a kiss. She also only teases Zoe's attraction to her and doesn't move forward with that physical relationship either. Why does she not go further with either woman because she does, on the same night she could've done something with Zoe, makes the actively more chaotic decision to sleep with Eamonn.

For Zoe, it's real. Where Mira is at now, emotionally, clearly, she's still going through heartbreak. The truth is, she did hook up with someone who was her assistant, Laurie, which a lot of people disagree with. Especially after #MeToo, with women, it's not looked upon the same as it would be if [Mira] was a man. I [as Alicia] was kind of like, that's quite an outrage. I hope Mira understands and knows what she did there. It's the Irma Vep spirit that stands to take over her, and I'm happy that nothing happened [with Regina]. As Alicia, when I made the scene in the hallway, I was like, wow, that's not okay…. It's not right, it's bad, and it felt quite difficult to shoot. I remember saying to Devon [Ross], when you do an intimate scene like that that I don't find, as Alicia, is right, in between I was like, "Wow, I'm sorry, this is not cool."

When Mira shares that moment with Regina, is that a way of her both indulging that desire in that brief moment, but also learning from the Laurie experience and choosing to not take it further?

It's a bad spirit taking hold of her again, and I think she's not doing the right thing. She's trying, in her own mind, to work out whatever happened with Laurie, and she's carrying a lot of guilt. The worst thing happens when you start to play out those power dynamics once again, even though you should know better by now. That's the Irma Vep character that starts to take hold of her too strong there. With Zoe, it's more that she's honestly confronting her with what she feels, and asks for Mira to do the same, but [Mira] isn't big enough to do that. She can only do it if it's not solidified, which is easier with Regina, because Mira's heart is still with Laurie. With Eamonn, even though they weren't meant to be together, that's still a relationship that meant a lot to her.

Mira also forms a brief relationship with the spirit of Jade, after René spent the series being haunted by her. I found Mira's discussion with Jade about fears of culturally appropriating a Chinese character to be fascinating, because the first film dealt with Maggie questioning playing a historic French character, and Jade also says she didn't consider herself to be identified foremost as a Chinese actress playing Irma. Was that scene always in the script, or was it added to address certain sensitivities with casting that you and Olivier anticipated?

All the episodes were written when we started to shoot. Nothing changed…. We had a discussion before we started to write it about what the world looked like and had a similar discussion that Jade and Mira had. We knew that the world looks the way it does right now, and that would be a discussion. It was always there, so I guess it was a comment he wanted to make part of the story.

The script handles it in a nuanced way, and it was interesting to see the reaction people had before reading the intricacies of the plot.

I knew what the script was when the news about the series went out, and it was interesting to see the response that we maybe already foresaw, knowing that, hopefully, people would understand that it wasn't the case, because the script and the story had been what you see now, which very much handles that. Mira has the same nerves and thoughts about what it's like to take on an iconic role that someone else has already done. It's all extremely meta.

Maggie Cheung hasn't acted since 2010, and Vivian Wu stepped in for her here, but do you know if there were there any conversations with Maggie to bring her back?

I didn't speak to her. If people know Olivier's history and background, it's quite special to watch this series, because for a person in any way to open up and be so generous and transparent with their own anxieties or life choices and relationships or histories, it's fantastic. The truth is that the series actually did bring them to having contact for the first time in I don't know how many years. She gave her blessing for this to be made and said that she'd read it and that it was all good. That, in itself, is a beautiful ending if you consider what the series is about.

Wrapping up the series, the production ends, Mira shoots Irma's death scene, then checks out of the hotel early and doesn't do the Dreamscape shoot she was contractually committed to. Why does Mira leave the production on that note, and why was it important for her to not do Dreamscape?

When I made Tomb Raider, I got to do something I've dreamed about since I was a kid. The difficult thing in our industry where people could end up being, I'm always honest, it's difficult to balance. The hard thing is to listen to yourself. But it's true, there are a lot of voices around you, and we clearly see [Carrie Brownstein as Mira's agent] Zelda being one of them, at least in Mira's life, and you must realize at some point that I need to make these decisions. I think she just made choices in her career that weren't hers. That's why she ended up not going there, because she just couldn't define herself within whatever that project was. That's the journey she made throughout the show.

We also never see how The Vampires rolls out into the world. How do you see the reception to The Vampires in the world of the show, and how would it impact René and Mira's careers?

I don't know if it would get super broad. [Laughs]

It would be an awkward press tour for René and Mira.

No, I think they'll enjoy it. They'll think it's great… if the critics won't get to them!

Back in the real world, have you envisioned or had discussions about a season 2?

Olivier wrote this in a few months, then shot it and was in the edit every single day. It's a crazy accomplishment. I spoke to the people at HBO, we couldn't come up with anyone else who's done it, so the work he's put into that is immense. If Olivier would say, "I'm doing a second season," and he asked me to join, I would do it, but I'm not sure he'd be able to do that job all over again, just right now. But, we'll see.

All episodes of Irma Vep are now streaming on HBO Max.

Hear more on all of today's must-see picks on EW's What to Watch podcast, hosted by Gerrad Hall.

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