Noomi’s next film is called “What Happened to Monday?”, but any fan’s question these days might rather be what happened to Noomi? She hasn’t been since since the Cannes Film Festival in May, and the answer is simple – work. Exciting for us, exhausting for Noomi, she is currently in Romania playing seven characters in the futuristic thriller by Tommy Wirkola. On Thursday, a press conference was held with the director as well as Noomi and co-stars Willem Dafoe and Clara Read. A news segment from the Romanian TV Neptun can be watched in the video archive, a couple of snapshots have been added to the photo gallery. Many thanks to Marinka for the heads-up!

Willem Dafoe has joined the cast of Noomi Rapace-starrer What Happened to Monday? The film, directed by Tommy Wirkola, has started shooting in Bucharest at the Castel Film Studios. Dafoe and Rapace are joined by Glenn Close in the sci-fi action thriller, which takes place in a not-so-distant future. Marwan Kenzari, Christian Rubeck and Pal Sverre Hagen have also boarded the project. In a future where overpopulation and famine have forced governments to undertake a drastic One-Child Policy, seven identical sisters live a hide-and-seek existence pursued by the Child Allocation Bureau. The Bureau, directed by the fierce Nicolette Cayman, enforces a strict family-planning agenda that the sisters outwit by taking turns assuming the identity of one person: Karen Settman. Taught by their grandfather who raised and named them — Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday and Sunday — each can go outside once a week as their common identity, but are only free to be themselves in the prison of their own apartment. That is until, one day, Monday does not come home.

What Happened to Monday?, a new sci-fi thriller directed by Norwegian Tommy Wirkola and starring Noomi Rapace and Glenn Close, will be shot in Romania. Filming will start this July, and scenes will be shot in Castel studios, in Bucharest and several locations across the country, according to Bogdan Moncea, marketing director Castel Film, cited by local Mediafax. In What Happened to Monday? Rapace plays the multiple roles of septuplet sisters who live in a world where families are allowed to have only one child, so the sisters have to remain hidden. The sisters are named after the days of the week. All goes well until one day when Monday doesn’t return home.

The Playlist has sat down with Noomi in Marrakech for an amazing interview in which she dishes on all of her new projects – including “Child 44” and “Animal Rescue” – and confirming “Alive Alone” and “What Happened to Monday”. Make sure to read the complete interview over at The Playlist.

On Child 44:

We did “Animal Rescue” and I love working with him. We know each other … sometimes you meet someone and you feel like you can go anywhere—step into different characters and time zones or a period film or contemporary or whatever—we have a very intimate [relationship] and trust each other a lot. But we have a lot of fun even if it’s quite dark or heavy, we’re always laughing a lot and having a good time, so I love working with him and he’s such an incredible actor, I’ve been really lucky. And Gary Oldman is in it, who is one of my heroes, and Ridley Scott produced so he’s in the background and Daniel Espinosa who is from Chile but grew up in Sweden he is directing it. He did “Safe House,” and “Snabba Cash” and he’s also a friend of mine. So it was a long shoot and quite a big epic movie in one way, but very much a character drama, also some kind of reverse love story between my character and Tom’s character: they’ve been married for eight years when the movie starts and it’s like a cold war between them.

On Animal Rescue:

I loved [his previous film] “Bullhead.” I saw it and was blown away and I called my team “I want to work with this guy!” Then I read “Animal Rescue” before he was even on board, and I was meeting with Fox Searchlight, we kept a dialogue going, and then when I heard Roskam was doing it, I wanted to do it. I think he’s very passionate, and intense and very well prepared, he knows what he wants and is very focused, very much an actor’s director. There’s actually a scene that’s not in the script, I came to him and said I think we need this scene, between me and Matthias, that tells more about the two of them, that they have a history together that you never really saw. We did it, like four takes and when I met them in L.A., they said it’s one of the best scenes, so he’s very open. I definitely think we will work together again.

On Alive Alone:

It’s actually one of the most beautiful scripts I’ve read, it’s a fantastic love story. I would say if you take “Taxi Driver” and “Leaving Las Vegas” and throw them together … It’s an intense story between my character who is a heroin addict and prostitute in New York and Matthias Schoenaerts, he is playing the other lead. We worked together on “Animal Rescue” and we really connected but we only had two scenes together. We felt straight away that we wanted to work together again, and he gave me the script and I read it and I thought it was amazing.

On What Happened to Monday:

Yeah I’m doing that, maybe it’s a big mistake! I will play seven twin sisters. I just came back from meeting with one of the producers in Paris and next week I’m in London to work with the director [Tommy Wirkola] on the script. It’s a Black List script, and was written for a man.

Exciting news from Deadline: Noomi Rapace has teamed with director Tommy Wirkola for “What Happened To Monday?” The script, which made the Black List, was written by Max Botkin. Rapace will play the multiple roles of septuplet sisters who struggle to stay hidden in an overpopulated world were a one-child policy outlaws siblings. Wirkola said he originally envisioned the protagonist(s) as male, but “I was struck by the complexities of having an actor portray seven characters and immediately knew Noomi was the ideal actor – male or female – to bring them to life,” Wirkola said in a statement. Raffaella De Laurentiis is producing through Raffaella Productions, along with Vendome’s Philippe Rousselet. Vendome is also financing the film. Sounds like an amazing new project for Noomi.