Vicky Krieps says she has long followed an instinct to take risks rather than the standard career script. The Luxembourg-born actor, who gained international attention for her role in Phantom Thread, has spent the past decade alternating between mainstream projects and lower-budget European films, explaining that the latter offer her creative freedom and a space to experiment.
Vicky Krieps has described early career pressure to conform. When she was in her twenties and became pregnant, she said she was advised that having a child would harm her prospects; she proceeded with the pregnancy despite that counsel. The experience, she has said in interviews, was part of a broader pattern in which she resisted expectations about how an actor’s life should be managed.
After her performance in Phantom Thread — directed by Paul Thomas Anderson — Krieps was widely expected to move into full-time Hollywood work. Instead she returned to small-scale French and other European productions, a choice she has said some industry figures found baffling. “It just seemed absurd to these people that I would turn my back on Hollywood and invest so much energy and passion in something that wasn’t giving me money,” she has stated, noting that she was “actually laughed at” for those decisions.
At the same time, Krieps has not abandoned the global market. She has appeared in Fede Álvarez’s The Girl in the Spider’s Web and M. Night Shyamalan’s Old, maintaining a presence in larger productions while preserving time for independent work. She also deliberately eschews red-carpet ritual, at times confronting photographers with playful gestures; on the subject she has said, “I always smile when I’m doing it. But I’m telling them: ‘Guys, this is really ridiculous and the shouting is a bit much.'”
Her career now reflects a sustained, deliberate balance between two spheres — occasional mainstream visibility and a steady commitment to smaller European projects. Industry observers note that Krieps’s choices have allowed her to pursue diverse roles and to retain control over the kinds of work she undertakes, framing her trajectory as one shaped by consistent professional priorities rather than a single predictable path.
