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The first photos have leaked of Rooney Mara in pre-production for The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo, playing the role everyone seems to have an opinion about. Rooney snagged the part of Lisbeth Salander just three weeks ago, after a long and arduous casting process. Dragon’s director, David Fincher, just finished working with Rooney on The Social Network – so she clearly must have impressed him.
A lot’s been written about the young actress’s ability to play Lisbeth, the punk computer hacker with a whole filing cabinet’s worth of sexual abuse history. In the bestselling novel that serves as the film’s source material, Lisbeth is described as a tiny, beautiful-but-strange-looking girl who is almost sinisterly emotionless. She’s certainly an original character any way you slice it. So what does it take to convincingly play a role so many people have already created in their own heads?
Owen Gleiberman of Entertainment Weekly backs up the casting decision, writing: “I think that Fincher did the right thing, and in fact made a very bold and ingenious move, by choosing a relative unknown. It gave me a tingle of anticipation that I had no idea who she was… Lisbeth Salander, even when you do get to know her, has a certain distant, mysterious, and forbidding punk-ghost quality. She never ingratiates, the way that a conventional movie star does.”
Much of the talk surrounding Rooney’s new role focuses on the actress’s appearance. People are wondering if the soft, big-eyed actress can pull of the hacker punk role. Steve Murray, who translated the novel from Swedish to English, said last month: “I’ve seen pictures of her on the internet and she doesn’t look anything like the picture I had of Salander in my head. She needs to do some working out if she’s going to play the part. She is just not buff enough at the moment. I must say I am disappointed.”
But the conversation is changing now that the new photos have appeared. Rooney’s chopped and dyed her hair and looks quite tough indeed inside Lisbeth’s biker suits and knit hats. Terri Schwartz of MTV agrees, writing: “Rooney definitely is rocking this look, and we think she looks pretty convincing as a badass private investigator and hacker. She’s definitely not as edgy in these pictures as Noomi Rapace was in the Swedish original and doesn’t look as tough yet as the character seems to call for, but we still think that she looks the part of Lisbeth.”
So what do you think? Can Rooney pull of the heavily scrutinized role or is she just too soft?
