The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo star Noomi Rapace speaks about how her experience of the movie was like drowning in trauma. Based on the hit novel by Swedish author Stieg Larsson, The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo was released in 2009 and became a global success, grossing $104 million worldwide on a budget of just $13 million. The movie spawned two sequels, also adapted from Larsson’s novels, The Girl Who Played With Fire and The Girl Who Kicked the Hornets’ Nest, both of which were also released in 2009.
The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo follows freelance surveillance agent and hacker Lisbeth Salander, who is recruited by a wealthy benefactor (played by Sven-Bertil Taube) to look into the background of journalist Mikael Blomkvist (Michael Nyqvist), whom he subsequently hires to investigate the disappearance of his niece. The movie was an unexpected success in North America, despite limited screenings, and it grossed more than $10 million from just 202 screenings. And Hollywood's interest in the movie did not end there, spawning a 2011 American remake directed by David Fincher starring Rooney Mara and Daniel Craig.
The film directed by Niels Arden Oplev dealt with dark and traumatic themes, and Rapace, who achieved international attention for her role, talks about the impact it had on her career. Speaking in an interview with The Guardian, Rapace mentions how trauma, pain, and sadness became her identity card, and that the movie was an experience that she had mixed feelings about. People, she says, often confuse her with her character:
I don’t want to be the badass. I even hate the word. People are always pitching things to me, ‘She’s so badass, she’s so you...' Making those films was like drowning in trauma. It meant that the first connective tissue between me and the world was pain for many years. Pain and sadness was like my identity card. Now I’ve healed a lot. Maybe I’m not lighter but I would say I allow more colours in me. I feel looser. The veneer, the shield I’d built up since childhood, is slowly peeling off. I’m alive now rather than surviving.
Having enjoyed a successful career since portraying Lisbeth Salander, the Swede has branched out into Hollywood movies as well as pursuing Scandinavian projects. With a diverse body of work over the past decade and a half, the BAFTA-nominated actor recently starred in the critically acclaimed Icelandic folk horror Lamb. With two movies currently in post-production, and a TV adaptation of Django in pre-production, the Gävleborg native has a busy year coming up.
Rapace's comments seem to suggest that, though she is grateful for The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo and what it has done for her career, the project was draining for her, both personally and professionally. The trauma and pain that accompanied her most famous role have come at a price, but this seems to be something she is working through. Having managed to develop a successful back catalog internationally, it seems clear Rapace's career is only going from strength to strength. And whilst Lisbeth Salander will be a role forever associated with her, it feels unlikely that she would have any interest in revisiting the character, or The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo, again, even in the planned Amazon TV reboot.
Source: The Guardian