A disgraced, but noble journalist. A serial killer with ties to high society. A young, beautiful computer hacker with a punk attitude and theories about the case. A lost little girl. A dark secret stretching back to WWII. Its easy to see why Stieg Larssons pulp Millennium trilogy (The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo, The Girl Who Played With Fire , and The Girl Who Kicked the Hornets Nest ) has become a runaway beach book phenomenon, selling more copies in Europe than almost any other books in the past decade, and why three feature-length Swedish films based on the trilogy were rushed into production in 2008, even as the novels were still smashing sales records. The frenzy of interest in the books (and the first film, which won the Swedish Oscar) was only heightened by the sudden death of the author prior to the trilogys release and the ensuing controversy surrounding his estate and suspicions about his untimely end (as recently reported on by Vanity Fair), as well as what some observers have been calling the discovery of the decade Swedish ingnue Noomi Rapace.
As the sullen computer genius/chess master/amateur detective/motorcycle punk Lisbeth Salander, Rapace has already earned enough fans worldwide to mark her as one of Europes most promising new actresses; in addition to being practically unable to walk down Swedish streets unmolested, shes been the subject of more than a few fawning profiles in the British press as well as incessant speculation about when shell make a decisive foray into English language cinema (though you shouldnt expect her to reprise the Lisbeth character in Sony Pictures forthcoming Hollywood remake of Dragon Tattoo George Clooney and Kristen Stewart are the names being whispered for the main roles). With her sculpted cheekbones, dark almond eyes and slightly tomboyish posture, the half-Spanish Rapace is like a hybrid of Angelina Jolie and a young Mia Farrow danger and gravitas delivered with a throaty Scandinavian accent. While recently in the states to kick off the domestic release of The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo, Rapace called up SuicideGirls to talk.
Ryan Stewart: Theres a scene in the film where the giant tattoo on Lisbeths back is shown off for the camera was there a special day where you had to sit and have that applied with makeup?
Noomi Rapace: No. It was a kids tattoo. [laughs] Like you put on with warm water, it was pretty similar to that. The makeup designer ordered them from Los Angeles, from this company that does all the tattoos for shows like Prison Break and I think they also did that film with Viggo Mortensen, the one where he plays a Russian? Anyway, theyve done a lot of tattoos for films, and theyre really good at it. Its a very expensive, but also very childish way of doing the tattoos. But I did want to transform myself, and I did do a lot of preparation. I put myself on a diet, because I wanted to be more skinny, in a way, though not anorexic. So, I trained and I exercised a lot, and we were practicing Thai boxing and kickboxing with this crazy Serbian guy five days a week for seven months. I also took motorcycle driving lessons and then I cut my hair and I did all of those piercings, and as I did that Lisbeth slowly grew inside of me. It was like my body and my mind and everything was slowly getting into changing into her, in a way.
RS: Shes outwardly emotionless to the point of autism, shes aggressively sexual, shes casually bisexual, she has breast implants -- do you think Stieg Larsson was writing his fantasy woman?
NR: Yes. [laughs] Maybe so, but its sometimes hard to get a clear picture of who she really is from the book. She has a lot of contradictions. Shes sometimes described as very ugly, with pig eyes like shes really ugly, but in the next scene or even the next page shes really sexy because the men are very attracted to her. So it is sometimes difficult to get a very clear picture of her, and also shes sometimes a bit cartoonish in the book she can do things that are not really realistic and I wanted to humanize her, in a way. I wanted the audience to be able to believe in her fully, and I wanted each scene to be credible. It was always important for me that the action scenes and the fight scenes be as realistic as possible. I didnt want a stunt woman to come in and do these fantastic Lara Croft stunts and so on -- I wanted to keep it pretty realistic and down to Earth.
RS: I know youve already filmed parts two and three of the trilogy did you shoot them all simultaneously, as one big project?
NR: Yeah, we did them back to back. I think we started in February of 2008 and I was finished at the end of December, so it was like that. I was also preparing for maybe seven months before that, so it was like one and a half years that I was working with Lisbeth on the trilogy. For me, it fit me pretty good to do it all in one burst of energy, you know? It was like I went down into Lisbeth and it became possible for me to be her, and to let her live in me for a long time, and I didnt have to go out of it and back into it that much. So, yeah, it fit me good, and it was a slow thing -- while we were shooting the second one I started to not even think so much at all that I was playing someone else. I had already been working with her such a long time by that point, so it was a good [process] for me.
RS: Even though parts two and three havent been released here in the U.S. yet, I did watch the Swedish trailer for part three. Nice Mohawk was that your idea?
NR: Yeah, pretty much. Those decisions were my decisions, all the way, what her look was and also how she would behave in a scene. I worked pretty closely with Niels [Oplev, the director] on the script also, and I think they listened to me, pretty much. Shes described the way she is in the book, but it was my decision to do the Mohawk, for example. In the second film she gets shot in her head and at the beginning of the third film shes actually in hospital and theyve shaved one of the sides of my head, so it was my decision to shave the other side also. In the first book shes described with many details, as far as how she looks, but in the second one and the third one its a bit more open to your imagination, in a way.
RS:Ive read that you were sort of a troubled teenager is that what you drew on? Did you get into trouble with the law like Lisbeth?
NR: Well, nah. I was a disaster when I was fourteen or fifteen, and I went to demonstrations and I was drunk every day, and so on. But I made a decision when I was fifteen and changed my life, in a way. I moved from the south of Sweden to Stockholm and I went to this drama high school and I got sober. I made the decision that I wanted to live, and that I wanted to be an actress for sure. I wasnt in big trouble, but I didnt believe in life when I was a teenager. I was very skeptical of everything and I felt like everyone around me was very unhappy and I couldnt even see any reason why you should be a grownup. Everybody was married and unhappy and it was so depressing, everywhere. As a society, the Swedes can be really depressing sometimes. They can be stoic and repressed and theyre emotionally very cold sometimes and they keep everything inside, you know? My temperament never really fit in with the Swedes, so I always felt like an outsider. But Lisbeth is much more extreme [than I was]. I was still a loved kid and I had a wonderful mother, so not exactly the same, but I do think that I could feel some kind of connection with her and I could kind of understand the way she handles things. I think she pretends to be strong even when shes sometimes very scared. I also think shes very vulnerable and sensitive inside, but shes built this hard shell. Its like shes wearing a uniform and shes always expecting everybody to be against her. Shes waiting for somebody to come and stab her in the back all the time. She doesnt really trust anyone, and I think I can understand that about her, but shes pretty far away from me in many senses.
RS: I understand you and Niels mixed it up on set a few times? You had some memorable creative arguments?
NR: Yeah, and I love him, and were both very passionate about our work, but were also both pretty stubborn. There was this one scene, actually, near the end of the first film do you remember the scene where Lisbeth is in the guest house, smoking, after [a bad guy character] has died in a car accident? Mikael [the noble journalist, her partner on the case] comes back and says to Lisbeth We have to forgive him. It was his father that taught him to kill and to rape, so it wasnt his fault. Hes a victim. And she says No, no, no! Everybody has a choice, he raped and killed because he wanted to, and if its his choice then he cant be a victim! I felt that Lisbeth had built her whole life on the notion that you do have a choice, and youre not a victim of circumstance because you can always make your own decisions, and you are your own boss, in a way. I think she has survived by thinking that way. But in the first script that I read there was this long scene there where she says to Mikael everything that she has gone through. She really opens up. There was this long monologue where she told him about her childhood and about what her father had done to her mother and why she was in a mental hospital she told him everything. And it was so totally out of character and I just flipped out when we came to that page. [laughs] I said to the director What is this? I cant do this, its impossible. And he actually didnt like the scene either, he wasnt satisfied with it, but he wanted a scene there. He said to me The audience for the film will include a lot of people who havent read the book and they arent going to see the second one and the third one, but theyll want to know what happened to her and why she is the way she is and why shes so angry.
RS: He wanted to make sure the film was its own complete story, and not just a chapter?
NR: Yeah, he also said that he wanted the journey with Mikael to have changed Lisbeth in a way, and I could agree on that point. I also wanted the meeting with Mikael to have done something to her, something deep, but I couldnt do it that way. And he said If we dont do the scene, we dont have a film! And I said You can call the producers and tell them, but I wont do this scene! And he got very upset and very angry with me, but I was also very upset. It was this very hard and emotional moment. We liked each other, but I couldnt do the scene and he still wanted me to do it. So, he said Okay, we have to calm down and I have to think about this. He ended up coming to me about two weeks later and he said I think I have it what if Mikael is the one who does the talking and he says I dont have to know what happened to you, I can tell that youve gone through hard things, but you dont have to tell me and I dont have to know, Im just happy that youre here with me. Remember the scene where they are laying on the bed, and Lisbeth says Thank you? Thats her big opening. I dont think that Lisbeth had ever said thank you to anybody before, so thats the thing. Her whole journey with Mikael has actually made it possible for her to open up a bit, with him at least. So that was the big thing that came out of this conflict, but I do like Niels very much and he said to me later on that he was happy that I was so stubborn and I had stood up for Lisbeth in a way.
RS: What was your contribution to the scene where Lisbeth is raped by her legal guardian? Did you sort of set the guidelines for how that would be filmed?
NR: Well, we talked through it a lot, but we didnt rehearse the scene. I was sure that we absolutely needed those scenes the rape scene and also the scene where Lisbeth comes back [and exacts a shocking revenge on her rapist] -- even though its a side story. The scenes with her legal guardian, theyre not really necessary to the main plot and we could have taken it out, but I really wanted that relationship between Lisbeth and Bjurman [the guardian] to be in the film, because its an important way to let you see important little pieces of Lisbeths past and why she feels the way she does about [the bad guy mentioned earlier] later on. So, I knew in my heart that I had to go in and do this scene, so we came to some agreements and we talked it through in terms of how far it would really go and where the limits would be and what we wanted out of the scene. In those kinds of situations, I think its extremely important that you be able to trust the director, in addition to sharing some kind of vision. Its all about what do we want and how shall we get there? Myself and Niels and Peter -- the other actor -- wanted the scene to be as credible as possible and also for it to be as realistic as we could make it. For me, I had to just let go of control, in a way. I also had to put away my vanity and just jump into the scene and accept being there.
RS: Lisbeth and Mikael eventually uncover a conspiracy with some nasty right-wing elements. Do you see these films as having anything serious to say about that aspect of Swedish society?
NR: I do, yes. Both in Sweden and in Denmark and in many countries of Europe, its frightening, actually. Its growing. There are many racists in Sweden, and I think its awful and terrifying. Were still struggling with those problems, even today. Stieg Larsson was working very seriously on this with a strong will toward changing things in Sweden and opening up peoples eyes. He had a price on his head from Nazis, you know? I think he was a very brave man because he kept going there and he kept writing those articles about these problems. When we did this film, I wanted for us also to put a light on those problems, in a way, because I think its always very dangerous to not talk about things. We have to force people to admit things about perfect Sweden. We love to show this picture of Sweden that is very nice and very equal and neutral and diplomatic and that is one side of it but we also have these darker things going on in Sweden and I think its extremely important that we dare to start talking about them.
RS: On the brighter side, Sweden seems to be having a minor film renaissance these days. We just saw Let the Right One In break through last year, now this.
NR: Yeah, I think so. I think that both the Millennium films and Let the Right One Inhave paved the way for more and bigger films, and films that are made for a more international public. Swedish filmmakers are now more willing to send their work out into the world, in a way. Before, we were making films for Swedes only, and thats very boring. And Im not a big fan of Swedish films, but I think now its changing and I think we have many interesting filmmakers coming up, you know? In the future I think there will be more good films coming out of Sweden.
RS: What do you think about the rumor that Stieg Larsson left behind a finished fourth Millennium book, which hasnt been made public yet?
NR: [laughs] Its only a rumor. Nobody actually knows. I think its Eva, Stiegs girlfriend, who says that the book is in a computer somewhere. No one really knows, but there are many, many rumors about this. But I do think Im done with it, with Lisbeth. I dont like to just stick to things and hold onto them. I always like to move on and look toward the future. Im not so sentimental.
The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo opens in select cities on March 19, 2010.
As the sullen computer genius/chess master/amateur detective/motorcycle punk Lisbeth Salander, Rapace has already earned enough fans worldwide to mark her as one of Europes most promising new actresses; in addition to being practically unable to walk down Swedish streets unmolested, shes been the subject of more than a few fawning profiles in the British press as well as incessant speculation about when shell make a decisive foray into English language cinema (though you shouldnt expect her to reprise the Lisbeth character in Sony Pictures forthcoming Hollywood remake of Dragon Tattoo George Clooney and Kristen Stewart are the names being whispered for the main roles). With her sculpted cheekbones, dark almond eyes and slightly tomboyish posture, the half-Spanish Rapace is like a hybrid of Angelina Jolie and a young Mia Farrow danger and gravitas delivered with a throaty Scandinavian accent. While recently in the states to kick off the domestic release of The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo, Rapace called up SuicideGirls to talk.
Ryan Stewart: Theres a scene in the film where the giant tattoo on Lisbeths back is shown off for the camera was there a special day where you had to sit and have that applied with makeup?
Noomi Rapace: No. It was a kids tattoo. [laughs] Like you put on with warm water, it was pretty similar to that. The makeup designer ordered them from Los Angeles, from this company that does all the tattoos for shows like Prison Break and I think they also did that film with Viggo Mortensen, the one where he plays a Russian? Anyway, theyve done a lot of tattoos for films, and theyre really good at it. Its a very expensive, but also very childish way of doing the tattoos. But I did want to transform myself, and I did do a lot of preparation. I put myself on a diet, because I wanted to be more skinny, in a way, though not anorexic. So, I trained and I exercised a lot, and we were practicing Thai boxing and kickboxing with this crazy Serbian guy five days a week for seven months. I also took motorcycle driving lessons and then I cut my hair and I did all of those piercings, and as I did that Lisbeth slowly grew inside of me. It was like my body and my mind and everything was slowly getting into changing into her, in a way.
RS: Shes outwardly emotionless to the point of autism, shes aggressively sexual, shes casually bisexual, she has breast implants -- do you think Stieg Larsson was writing his fantasy woman?
NR: Yes. [laughs] Maybe so, but its sometimes hard to get a clear picture of who she really is from the book. She has a lot of contradictions. Shes sometimes described as very ugly, with pig eyes like shes really ugly, but in the next scene or even the next page shes really sexy because the men are very attracted to her. So it is sometimes difficult to get a very clear picture of her, and also shes sometimes a bit cartoonish in the book she can do things that are not really realistic and I wanted to humanize her, in a way. I wanted the audience to be able to believe in her fully, and I wanted each scene to be credible. It was always important for me that the action scenes and the fight scenes be as realistic as possible. I didnt want a stunt woman to come in and do these fantastic Lara Croft stunts and so on -- I wanted to keep it pretty realistic and down to Earth.
RS: I know youve already filmed parts two and three of the trilogy did you shoot them all simultaneously, as one big project?
NR: Yeah, we did them back to back. I think we started in February of 2008 and I was finished at the end of December, so it was like that. I was also preparing for maybe seven months before that, so it was like one and a half years that I was working with Lisbeth on the trilogy. For me, it fit me pretty good to do it all in one burst of energy, you know? It was like I went down into Lisbeth and it became possible for me to be her, and to let her live in me for a long time, and I didnt have to go out of it and back into it that much. So, yeah, it fit me good, and it was a slow thing -- while we were shooting the second one I started to not even think so much at all that I was playing someone else. I had already been working with her such a long time by that point, so it was a good [process] for me.
RS: Even though parts two and three havent been released here in the U.S. yet, I did watch the Swedish trailer for part three. Nice Mohawk was that your idea?
NR: Yeah, pretty much. Those decisions were my decisions, all the way, what her look was and also how she would behave in a scene. I worked pretty closely with Niels [Oplev, the director] on the script also, and I think they listened to me, pretty much. Shes described the way she is in the book, but it was my decision to do the Mohawk, for example. In the second film she gets shot in her head and at the beginning of the third film shes actually in hospital and theyve shaved one of the sides of my head, so it was my decision to shave the other side also. In the first book shes described with many details, as far as how she looks, but in the second one and the third one its a bit more open to your imagination, in a way.
RS:Ive read that you were sort of a troubled teenager is that what you drew on? Did you get into trouble with the law like Lisbeth?
NR: Well, nah. I was a disaster when I was fourteen or fifteen, and I went to demonstrations and I was drunk every day, and so on. But I made a decision when I was fifteen and changed my life, in a way. I moved from the south of Sweden to Stockholm and I went to this drama high school and I got sober. I made the decision that I wanted to live, and that I wanted to be an actress for sure. I wasnt in big trouble, but I didnt believe in life when I was a teenager. I was very skeptical of everything and I felt like everyone around me was very unhappy and I couldnt even see any reason why you should be a grownup. Everybody was married and unhappy and it was so depressing, everywhere. As a society, the Swedes can be really depressing sometimes. They can be stoic and repressed and theyre emotionally very cold sometimes and they keep everything inside, you know? My temperament never really fit in with the Swedes, so I always felt like an outsider. But Lisbeth is much more extreme [than I was]. I was still a loved kid and I had a wonderful mother, so not exactly the same, but I do think that I could feel some kind of connection with her and I could kind of understand the way she handles things. I think she pretends to be strong even when shes sometimes very scared. I also think shes very vulnerable and sensitive inside, but shes built this hard shell. Its like shes wearing a uniform and shes always expecting everybody to be against her. Shes waiting for somebody to come and stab her in the back all the time. She doesnt really trust anyone, and I think I can understand that about her, but shes pretty far away from me in many senses.
RS: I understand you and Niels mixed it up on set a few times? You had some memorable creative arguments?
NR: Yeah, and I love him, and were both very passionate about our work, but were also both pretty stubborn. There was this one scene, actually, near the end of the first film do you remember the scene where Lisbeth is in the guest house, smoking, after [a bad guy character] has died in a car accident? Mikael [the noble journalist, her partner on the case] comes back and says to Lisbeth We have to forgive him. It was his father that taught him to kill and to rape, so it wasnt his fault. Hes a victim. And she says No, no, no! Everybody has a choice, he raped and killed because he wanted to, and if its his choice then he cant be a victim! I felt that Lisbeth had built her whole life on the notion that you do have a choice, and youre not a victim of circumstance because you can always make your own decisions, and you are your own boss, in a way. I think she has survived by thinking that way. But in the first script that I read there was this long scene there where she says to Mikael everything that she has gone through. She really opens up. There was this long monologue where she told him about her childhood and about what her father had done to her mother and why she was in a mental hospital she told him everything. And it was so totally out of character and I just flipped out when we came to that page. [laughs] I said to the director What is this? I cant do this, its impossible. And he actually didnt like the scene either, he wasnt satisfied with it, but he wanted a scene there. He said to me The audience for the film will include a lot of people who havent read the book and they arent going to see the second one and the third one, but theyll want to know what happened to her and why she is the way she is and why shes so angry.
RS: He wanted to make sure the film was its own complete story, and not just a chapter?
NR: Yeah, he also said that he wanted the journey with Mikael to have changed Lisbeth in a way, and I could agree on that point. I also wanted the meeting with Mikael to have done something to her, something deep, but I couldnt do it that way. And he said If we dont do the scene, we dont have a film! And I said You can call the producers and tell them, but I wont do this scene! And he got very upset and very angry with me, but I was also very upset. It was this very hard and emotional moment. We liked each other, but I couldnt do the scene and he still wanted me to do it. So, he said Okay, we have to calm down and I have to think about this. He ended up coming to me about two weeks later and he said I think I have it what if Mikael is the one who does the talking and he says I dont have to know what happened to you, I can tell that youve gone through hard things, but you dont have to tell me and I dont have to know, Im just happy that youre here with me. Remember the scene where they are laying on the bed, and Lisbeth says Thank you? Thats her big opening. I dont think that Lisbeth had ever said thank you to anybody before, so thats the thing. Her whole journey with Mikael has actually made it possible for her to open up a bit, with him at least. So that was the big thing that came out of this conflict, but I do like Niels very much and he said to me later on that he was happy that I was so stubborn and I had stood up for Lisbeth in a way.
RS: What was your contribution to the scene where Lisbeth is raped by her legal guardian? Did you sort of set the guidelines for how that would be filmed?
NR: Well, we talked through it a lot, but we didnt rehearse the scene. I was sure that we absolutely needed those scenes the rape scene and also the scene where Lisbeth comes back [and exacts a shocking revenge on her rapist] -- even though its a side story. The scenes with her legal guardian, theyre not really necessary to the main plot and we could have taken it out, but I really wanted that relationship between Lisbeth and Bjurman [the guardian] to be in the film, because its an important way to let you see important little pieces of Lisbeths past and why she feels the way she does about [the bad guy mentioned earlier] later on. So, I knew in my heart that I had to go in and do this scene, so we came to some agreements and we talked it through in terms of how far it would really go and where the limits would be and what we wanted out of the scene. In those kinds of situations, I think its extremely important that you be able to trust the director, in addition to sharing some kind of vision. Its all about what do we want and how shall we get there? Myself and Niels and Peter -- the other actor -- wanted the scene to be as credible as possible and also for it to be as realistic as we could make it. For me, I had to just let go of control, in a way. I also had to put away my vanity and just jump into the scene and accept being there.
RS: Lisbeth and Mikael eventually uncover a conspiracy with some nasty right-wing elements. Do you see these films as having anything serious to say about that aspect of Swedish society?
NR: I do, yes. Both in Sweden and in Denmark and in many countries of Europe, its frightening, actually. Its growing. There are many racists in Sweden, and I think its awful and terrifying. Were still struggling with those problems, even today. Stieg Larsson was working very seriously on this with a strong will toward changing things in Sweden and opening up peoples eyes. He had a price on his head from Nazis, you know? I think he was a very brave man because he kept going there and he kept writing those articles about these problems. When we did this film, I wanted for us also to put a light on those problems, in a way, because I think its always very dangerous to not talk about things. We have to force people to admit things about perfect Sweden. We love to show this picture of Sweden that is very nice and very equal and neutral and diplomatic and that is one side of it but we also have these darker things going on in Sweden and I think its extremely important that we dare to start talking about them.
RS: On the brighter side, Sweden seems to be having a minor film renaissance these days. We just saw Let the Right One In break through last year, now this.
NR: Yeah, I think so. I think that both the Millennium films and Let the Right One Inhave paved the way for more and bigger films, and films that are made for a more international public. Swedish filmmakers are now more willing to send their work out into the world, in a way. Before, we were making films for Swedes only, and thats very boring. And Im not a big fan of Swedish films, but I think now its changing and I think we have many interesting filmmakers coming up, you know? In the future I think there will be more good films coming out of Sweden.
RS: What do you think about the rumor that Stieg Larsson left behind a finished fourth Millennium book, which hasnt been made public yet?
NR: [laughs] Its only a rumor. Nobody actually knows. I think its Eva, Stiegs girlfriend, who says that the book is in a computer somewhere. No one really knows, but there are many, many rumors about this. But I do think Im done with it, with Lisbeth. I dont like to just stick to things and hold onto them. I always like to move on and look toward the future. Im not so sentimental.
The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo opens in select cities on March 19, 2010.