In a few weeks, the American adaptation of "The Girl WIth The Dragon Tattoo" will hit theaters to deafening anticipation. Rooney Mara, with her angled haircut, pale face, pierced everything and tattoos galore, will embody Lisbeth Salander for the entire western hemisphere. To those in the story's original home of Sweden, however, there is another face that comes to mind when Salander's name is evoked.
Noomi Rapace, the 31-year old Swedish actress, is the original Lisbeth Salander. She first brought the dynamic character from late author Stieg Larsson's "Millenium" series to life on the big screen, with the first of three film adaptations coming in 2009. The pictures were shot in rapid succession, with critical acclaim and box office success following each release. When it was all over, leaving the role was a physically sickening proposition.
"My whole body was just kind of throwing Lisbeth out of me," she told Black Book Magazine, remembering back to when, following the last film's wrap, she vomited behind the scenes.
The next few weeks were quite difficult for her.
"I was like, I don't know who I am anymore!" she remembered. "It's almost like you're coming out of a... It's like you've loaned yourself to someone else."
It's a similar sentiment to that which she expressed in a recent interview with Collider.
"When I stepped into Lisbeth [Salander], and when she grew in me, I was prepping for seven months, I changed my body a lot and I was training a lot, and I took the license for a motorcycle, and I did all those piercings and cut my hair," she told the website. "She slowly came to me, when I was prepping, and then, we were filming for one year, so she occupied me for one and a half years. And then, when I came out of that bubble, I was like, "Oh, my god, people are going to hate me. They're going to hate what I did."
It does not, however, seem as if the public is feeling any sort of hatred toward Rapace. In fact, she'll beat the new "Dragon Tattoo" to theaters this month, as she stars in the upcoming "Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows" and Ridley Scott's "Prometheus."
For more, click over to Black Book Magazine.