The amazing Noomi Rapace went from a beautiful, feminine young actress to a rail thin, pierced hacker in The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo! The day after landing the "role of a lifetime" she started a soul crushing regime of kickboxing, diets, and piercings.
“I started the very next day on a diet. No bread, pasta, potatoes, no candy and no alcohol. All protein and vegetables. It was pretty hard."
“I wanted to get rid of my female softness through Thai boxing and kick boxing. I wanted to be more like a boy in my body. Lisbeth’s athletic, she’s anorexic, but she can fight. She’s almost cartoonish, like a female action hero. I wanted to humanize her."
“I told Niels I wanted to fight in the fighting scenes, no stunt people. I wanted to wake up some kind of aggression in my body. I felt it; in exercise I liked to fight. I felt the taste of blood in my mouth sometimes.” She and her Serbian trainer worked for seven months together, while Rapace also got her motorcycle license.
“I cut my hair, I had real piercings.” She leans towards me, pointing at her left eyebrow: “Maybe you can still see a small scar. They said I could have fake ones, but I didn’t want to. I wanted to feel those piercings in myself.”
Now that's dedication! And it was all worth it. Rapace embodied Salander from her short hair to her super skinny boyish body! I don't know that any American actress has a chance at topping her performance. I feel sorry for whoever signs on for the role....
