'The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo' Rape Scene: Rooney Mara Talks 'Intense' Experience

Shocking and brutal, the rape of Lisbeth Salander by her guardian/probation officer is the inciting incident to the quest for revenge that helps power "The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo." Portrayed starkly and disturbingly in the original Swedish film adaptation of the book, the American, David Fincher-directed movie version also sought to bring to screen the unmerciful sequence of events described on the pages of Stieg Larsson's hit novel.

Speaking to Entertainment Weekly, Rooney Mara, who completely transforms to play the role of Lisbeth, described the difficulty -- and importance -- of making the rape scene as true to the book as possible.

"It was incredibly intense. We did it all in a week -- the week of Valentine's Day, oddly enough," she remembered. "We were working 16 hours a day, and it was really, really challenging, not just emotionally but physically. But it's such an important scene. We wanted to do everything we could to get that right."

Director David Fincher hinted that the scene -- and the subsequent revenge payoff -- would be visually unforgiving in an interview earlier in the year with W Magazine.

"Sony and Scott Rudin [producer] told me they wanted to be in the adult-film-franchise business," Fincher said. "And they said, 'We want you to kick the A in adult.' They already had a release date--December 2011--but I wasn't sure I wanted to do another movie about a serial killer [following "Zodiac"]. Then I read the script, and I called Scott and said, 'I can't imagine why you thought of me.'"

Of course, about that last part, he was joking -- Fincher is known, through films such as "Fight Club," to be a director willing to brush up against boundaries of violence and brutality. Daniel Craig, who stars in the film as Mikael Blomkvist, confirmed as much in a recent cover story for Esquire.

"This is adult drama. I grew up, as we f*cking all did, watching 'The Godfather' and that, movies that were made for adults. And this is a $100 million R-rated movie," he said. "Nobody makes those anymore. And Fincher, he's not holding back. They've given him free rein. He showed me some scenes recently, and my hand was over my mouth, going, Are you f*cking serious?"

For much more from Mara on the film, click over to EW. For more images of Mara, click here.

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Comments

[gypsynomad]

07:57 PM on 08/15/2011

I do like Danial Craig as James Bond,and I hope he could meet the expectations of the readers, who got attached to Mikael ( kalle) Blomkvist, acted so well by Michale Nyqvist. I am not famalier with Roony Mara, I am sure she is good as well, but the standard is set rather high by Noomi Rapace. I suppose I have to wait for the DVD .

[myzenthing]

03:16 PM on 08/15/2011

I doubt it'll be as good as the original. Hollywood remakes never are.

[Corban]

01:46 PM on 08/15/2011

People need to look at the control the MPAA has on the movie industry. This institution that Jack Valenti started needs to go the way of the Dodo. It is nothing more than a small group of self appointed elitists who can give the proverbial "thumbs up" or "thumbs down" on any film. A film can't get rated without their say and can't be marketed without a rating. If the MPAA was made up of real artists from the industry who can look at a film for it's face-value I would be more tolerant towards it. But It's not; all the who, what, why, where and when's of how a film is marketed is completely reliant on the MPAA. The MPAA is nothing more than censorship.

[Chauncey Clouse]

09:30 PM on 08/15/2011

You're right, it's basically Jim-Crow laws for film makers. The MPAA is basically a secret society protecting the big production companies.

[MarsHottentot]

11:34 AM on 08/15/2011

Whomever does your hype lines is really weird: "Rooney Mara Dishes Details On Brutal 'Dragon Tattoo' Rape Scene" 'Dish' as in 'Ooo La La' and 'Rape' as in 'Rape' should really never be in the same sentence.

[rbryanh]

11:17 AM on 08/15/2011

Not content with the dead, the necromancers in LA now make zombies from living films. Why risk saying anything original when repeating someone else's success (Now in English!) is so much more profitable?

American culture is moribund beyond endurance. Watching it stagger, drool, and cough up blood is depressing. Can't we just take it out and shoot it?

[AGarcia]

11:11 AM on 08/15/2011

I read the first book, wasn't that impressed. The characters and story were very exaggerated and it was hard to feel like any of it was real. The "mystery" aspect was unimpressive. It felt like a "Young Adult" series book written for a "mature" audience (older male), very pulp-ish. It seemed highly stylized and tailor made for film.

[SlurmsMcKenzie]

12:09 PM on 08/15/2011

i agree with what you are saying. i found the book predictable and the characterization paper thin . You nailed it on the " Young Adult" series .The good guy is good, the bad folk are very bad and that's about it. This could be the fault of the translator. The most irksome thing to me was how the male lead had such hypnotic effect on the women of the book.

[eskeeemo]

10:50 AM on 08/15/2011

I still have nightmares about the rape scene in The Accused. One has to give credit to an actress who is willing to go there. Not sure I want to watch it, though.

[jameslancaster5]

09:30 AM on 08/15/2011

The Swedish original (now available on DVD) was a stunning chiller. There are some fine credentials involved in this American interpretation but the bar has been set VERY high.

[REMEMBER2050]

10:47 AM on 08/15/2011

Naw. By the third film that Swedish version was just going through the steps to tell a story. It was a tired recitation and oddly, in spite of all the action, it really felt like it didn't have any. Now my husband was more of a fan and was thrilled with the first movie and a little more than ok with the second, but in the end, it even disappointed him. So I'm certainly waiting to see if this go-around does the story better.

[gypsynomad]

07:55 AM on 08/15/2011

To all who wants to skip the Swedish movies, remember the actors come as they are, no one goes under the knives to remove their facial expression and feelings, au naturale.

[f8doggie]

07:03 AM on 08/15/2011

Graphic violence and sex in films does not appeal to me. It is much too embarrassing to watch. I would probably skip the movie (as I skipped the book) on this one.

[RealistBC]

06:38 AM on 08/15/2011

Hollywood can play with "improving" this movie all they want. They won't match the original series no matter how much they spend.

[shakeyj]

08:34 AM on 08/15/2011

Agreed

[BlackBuddha]

04:55 AM on 08/15/2011

Both movies are inspired by the book. None are or will be the same.

Competitive art is ridiculous. Europhiles and others will appreciate the Swedish versions, Americans will market their version worldwide and incessantly... and the high-brow will insist that the book is still better than the movie.

...and if you read the Book in Swedish... I grant you the right to look down on everybody else. (...but if you do, you're not a good Swede.)

[gypsynomad]

12:55 PM on 08/15/2011

Oh..the book is better and many pages of course , but the Swedish one is great. But of course they can not cover all, time was the factor.

[Lucy Goosey]

01:23 AM on 08/15/2011

Flagged as gibberish. Please go away.

[Lucy Goosey]

12:40 AM on 08/15/2011

That trailer sucked. If I didn't know anything about the books or Swedish movies (which I thought were awesome) I wouldn't give this version of the movie a second thought, based on that trailer. Having read the books and having seen the Swedish versions of the movies, I don't feel a pressing need to see the "Americanized" version. I get the feeling I would only be disappointed.

And as others have said...Good luck to the actress trying to fill Noomi Rapace's shoes!

[Chauncey Clouse]

12:03 AM on 08/15/2011

Hollywood's been out of ideas for SO long now, they'll rip-off anything they can make a buck on. They're remaking Straw Dogs, they remade Let the Right One In, etc, etc.. Why? Money and lack of creativity. It's ridiculous.

[Corban]

01:31 PM on 08/15/2011

You hit the nail on the head. When movies like Footloose and Dirty Dancing are remade it makes me believe that mainstream Hollywood has lost all perspective. On the flip-side though, people see them and in turn it makes money. Hollywood puts tons of research (I use that word lightly though) into pre-production for films and there does seem to be a market for this detritus. Sometimes a director is so influenced by a foreign film that they probably only see's because they appreciate film or get told to watch it in film school, that they make their own version. Solaris is a good example of that and to me that's cool. But there is also a line, a line of creativity that those who make film should respect. Hollywood has gone the route where it's tough to separate the art from the pop. This original film, The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo shows that there is a demand and appreciation for good cinema that isn't from Hollywood. I think Hollywood is doing this to scare away the foreign market and snub the foreign market by implying they can churn out the best they do as though it were a commercial. There are tons of great ideas out there but this control Hollywood has silenced most of them.