The selection of Rooney Mara, or any other actress, to play the part of Lisbeth Salander in Stieg Larsson's Millenium Trilogy, never seemed to make any sense to fans of the tiny but viper-like victim of Sweden's child welfare system.
All three books by the late writer were made into movies with English subtitles. They were not widely shown in the U.S. Subtitles tend to be the kiss of death in American movie theaters.
It's not clear why the Swedish movies weren't grabbed when they first came out. It's not like the country of Bergman, Ingmar and Ingrid, doesn't have an outstanding history of cinema.
The performance of Noomi Rapace in the three movies already made by Sweden was stunning. She seemed to live and breathe Salander's character as she went about destroying those who had allowed her father to abuse her mother.
All the while she dealt with large men who were adept killers, including her father, a former KGB agent. Her savvy, cyber hacking skills and the pain threshold of a shark made her a tiny bomb shell.
The first book/movie was given the English name of The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo. In Swedish it was called Men Who Hate Women. And that seemed to convey the spirit much more clearly. The Swedish actress gets revenge in very brutal ways, aided by a crusading reporter played by Michael Nyqvist.
The films are not for the faint of heart. And it wasn't the first tour de force for Rapace, who played in the Danish film Daisy Diamond before becoming Lisbeth.
Mara didn't get even get through the first days of filming in Sweden. She was injured while learning to ride a motorcycle, fight and build up her muscle strength, Aftonbladet reported. She suffered an injury to her shoulder and is undergoing rehab.
The leader of the film project said he knew nothing of the injury. Sony Pictures denied Mara had been injured.
In interviews, Rapace said she spent considerable time working out and learning to box to make sure she could make Lisbeth look believable.