The Hollywood Reporter (2010)
Girl With the Dragon Tattoo star moving on
May 16, 2010 | Written by Scott Roxborough
Noomi Rapace, the star of Swedish hit "The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo," will not reprise her role as goth hacker Lisbeth Salander in David Fincher's English-language adaptation of the Stieg Larsson best-seller.

Speaking to THR in Cannes, Rapace said after two years shooting the Larsson "Millennium" trilogy in Swedish, she has had enough of Salander and would not accept the role even if Fincher offered it to her. "No, I'm done with her (Lisbeth), and it's up to somebody else to step into her shoes," Rapace said. "I don't like to repeat myself. So it's better if someone else does it."

But Rapace did suggest that Fincher and producer Scott Rudin expand their casting call beyond the A-listers (Natalie Portman, Keira Knightley and Carey Mulligan are among those thought to be vying for the part) to include some lesser-known names. "I hope they won't take, you know, a big celebrity ... because sometimes the fame makes it difficult to believe in (the character), especially Lisbeth, who is very complicated and dark and so on," she said. "So I hope they take someone who is a little less known. Not one of the biggest ones. We'll see."

Rapace is leaving Lisbeth behind for her new role in the in-production "Babycall," a psychological thriller by Norwegian director Pal Sletaune, in which she plays Anna, a young mother on the run from her abusive husband. "She is very far away from Lisbeth. She's the opposite. She's vulnerable and fragile," Rapace said. "At the beginning of the film she has come to a new city, a new apartment and she is trying to start a new life. But she is very afraid all the time that her husband will come and, after a while, she begins to see things where she is not quite sure if they really exist. It's a love story between a mother and child, but it's a psychological thriller with many levels."

Match Factory is preselling "Babycall" in Cannes. NFP in Germany and Norway's SF Norge already have snatched the film for local release. After wrapping "Babycall," Lisbeth will do her first English-language film -- Barthelemy Grossmann's "The Nazi Officer's Wife," set to begin principle photography in Europe in September. Rapace will star alongside fellow Scandi star Mads Mikkelsen in the adaptation of the Edith Hahn Beer book about an Austrian Jew who survived the Holocaust living under an assumed identity and who ended up marrying a Nazi officer.

PTZ International already has presold "Nazi Officer" to Scanbox for Scandinavia and Seville in Canada and is in takes for several major European territories.

© 2010 The Hollywood Reporter