I have recently developed a bit of a crush, or be it in the imaginary one on a certain Swedish actress called Noomi Rapace or rather the protagonist Lisbeth Salander. I think the foot high Mohawk she wore in the girl who kicked the hornets nest was to blame. Recent years have seen the film industry churning out nothing but torture p**n, bromances and video game action flicks, and to all intense and purposes it was looking like the cinematography and acting ability in mainstream cinema was dead. Battling against the waves of puerile vomit flowing out of Hollywood, Rapace has done something that is very rare in modern cinema.. she has kept afloat and stood out.
Unknown to typical movie goers, Rapace had been an art house legend in Sweden for years before her big break into the U.S with “The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo” and the rest of Stieg Larsson’s Millennium trilogy.
Born in 1979, the 31 year old Rapace lived most of her childhood in Iceland with her mother, Swedish Actress Nina Noren (who plays Lisbeth’s mother). At 15 she left Iceland to become an actress and attended Stockholm theatre school.
She received acclaim as a teenage mother in 2007 in film Daisy Diamond which likely led her to her being the choice for Lisbeth Salander.
Images of Lisbeth Salander in the Millennium trilogy
1- The girl with the dragon tattoo
2- The girl who played with fire
3 – The girl who kicked the hornets nest
Her first English speaking role will be as a French gypsy in the next Sherlock holmes installment ‘A game of shadows’ alongside Robert Downey Junior and Jude Law.
She will also be starring in the long speculated prequel to Aliens Promethous directed by Ridley Scott. Although it now looks as if it will be less of a prequel to Alien and more of a Alien DNA spin off. In the new film Rapace will play Elizabeth Shaw and scientist, and it is highly likely that she will be heralded as a modern day Ripley.
And lastly a whisper for, Hollywood is that David Slade wants Rapace for his Vampire horror Last Voyage of the Demeter. The film will follow the merchant ship that carried Dracula’s coffin from Transylvania to England. Rapace is meant to be playing a stowaway on the ill fated ship that in Bram Stokers novel arrived in Whitby with no survivors.
