FILM INTERVIEW: NOOMI RAPACE

Finding The Source Of Lisbeth's Strength In 'The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo'

By: Parimal M. Rohit

May 18, 2010

When speaking with Noomi Rapace, it is difficult to discern which has more bite – the viciously large dragon tattooed on her bare back while playing Lisabeth in The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, or the candid words she had to say about Scandinavian culture and society in a recent interview with Buzzine. In her chat, Noomi mentioned how much she loved the opportunity presented to her in playing Lisbeth and how much The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo may have opened the eyes of the world to some of the dark-but-not-revealed secrets of her beloved Sweden.

A graduate of Sweden’s Steiner Schools, an institute for creative and artistic students, Noomi spent a warm weekday afternoon overlooking the pool deck at West Hollywood’s The Standard Hotel candidly chatting about her role of Lisbeth in one of the most powerfully gripping films to come out of the northern tundra of Scandinavian Europe.

“I loved her from the very first moment. She is such a survivor. She is like an underdog fighter, and she is so full of life,” Noomi reminisced to Buzzine about her role. “She went through so many terrible things, but I love the fact that she never felt sorry for herself and she doesn’t see herself as a victim. She doesn’t let anyone tell her what to do. I think she is kind of a rebel, and I like that.”

It was through the rebellious nature of her character that Noomi was allowed to shed a unique light on Sweden, a perspective the Swedish actress thought was necessary to reveal through the film in order to stay true to the message first shared by Stieg Larsson’s novels of which the screen adaptation of The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo is based upon.

“(Larsson) wanted to change things in society. He was working against violence against women and power abuse. He wasn’t really that popular when he was alive, and had a lot of enemies, but he was a brave man,” Noomi revealed to Buzzine about Larsson’s socially conscious agenda, adding that the very same perspectives needed to be present in the film adaptation of the novel series.

“There were many Nazis who were trying to figure out where he lived and where he went at night. He had a price on his head, and I know he was living in fear,” she added. “But he continued to do what he thought was really important. He really fought for weaker people around him.”

With the socially conscious context perfectly set up in Larsson’s novels, Noomi wanted to do everything she could to perfectly embody the true nature of Lisbeth in order for the film adaptation of The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo to bring life to Steig’s perspectives on the side of Sweden he believed the outside world was fully unaware of.

“It was really important for me to let her be as complicated and extreme, in a way, as she is in the books, and to let her be that way in the film also. It was a mission for me, in every scene, to make it more real,” Noomi shared. “It was a big responsibility for us when we were doing the film -- we had to be true to (Larsson’s) mission. If it’s a rape scene, we really have to do the rape scene as horrible as it would be in reality. It can’t be entertainment because then it would not be true.”

Indeed, there was a gripping rape scene in The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo that is so disturbingly real, audiences will struggle to endure the moments it takes to play out on screen. Yet, it is that realism Noomi wanted to capture – both for the sake of the film and for sharing Larsson’s take on Swedish society with the world.

“I wanted the audience to believe her and see her as a real, breathing person. When (film director) Niels (Arden Oplev) approached me for this role, I said to him, 'If you want me to play Lisbeth, I would like to transform into her. I would like to change my body and do everything for real,'” she said with candor and insight. “So I practiced a lot of kickboxing and Thai boxing because, in my action scenes, I did not want some stunt woman to come in and do fantastic action scenes. I wanted to be credible.”

With that credibility, Noomi hoped audiences would give credence to the thought that everything within Sweden’s borders is not what it seems, an overarching moral of The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo.

“Sweden is very good at showing up this perfect surface -- everyone is smiling in life, and everyone’s trying to not stick out and speak too loud. I think the Swedish society can be kind of a cage sometimes,” Noomi seriously told Buzzine, leaning into the table as she spoke. “We’re not really allowed to show much feeling, and I think people are bit stoic and repressed, and keeping everything inside. It is really hard to understand what people really think and feel. I wanted people to see we have a lot of real problems in Sweden.”

To that end, Noomi told this writer she thinks The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo will really open the audiences’ eyes about the skeletons roaming around in Sweden’s closet, just like Larsson would have wanted the film to do, had he been alive to see it.

“I think people are a bit surprised of the picture, what the film actually says about Sweden, because people have another image of Sweden, and I think the politicians are very good at showing that picture -- that we are neutral, diplomatic and a very equal country – and we are,” Noomi said, criticizing her motherland while also defending it. “We are a good country in many ways, but we also have this darker legacy and this darker thing we really don’t want to admit or talk about. I think it’s a bit of a twisted picture of Sweden, but it’s kind of true.”

What Noomi also thought would be true was a public backlash to both her and the film. Alas, to her surprise, the 30-year-old Swedish actress candidly told Buzzine she was pleasantly surprised by the reactions she actually received.

“I expected everyone to hate the film because expectations were so high and everyone was waiting for this film, so it felt like a suicide mission, in a way. But I had to just close my eyes and ears to the outside world and try to create something personal and something we really believed in,” Noomi reflected. “When the film was released (in Europe), I was pretty sure I couldn’t walk on the streets, but people loved the film in Sweden and Scandinavia and in Europe, and I was really surprised.”

The one thing she was not surprised by was just how much audiences, especially women, would be able to relate to both Lisbeth and the film, making The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo much more than just a movie about the strengths and weaknesses of Sweden.

“Ultimately, this is not a Swedish-specific movie, and Lisbeth is not a typical anything. She is (more than) a Swedish young woman,” Noomi compassionately told Buzzine. “There are many Lisbeth’s around the world. Many young women have been let down by their government and the politicians and police and schools and social workers. I think people can follow her and connect with her.”

This weekend, American audiences will have a chance to follow and connect with Lisbeth while also discovering some of the darker elements of Sweden, as The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo hits screens in select cities on March 19th.

Officially titled Men Who Hate Women in Sweden, The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo also stars Michael Nyqvist and is directed by Oplev. The film was originally released throughout Europe, Japan and New Zealand.