Great Performers: Noomi Rapace
A king and a terrorist. A tattooed hacker and a crazy mama. They may lose an arm or a spouse, become a billionaire or a vigilante, but the actors we celebrate here are sorcerers who, by pouring self into story, created indelible characters worth admiring or reviling — and always worth treasuring
For a year and a half, she poured such fury and craft, so much of herself, into Lisbeth Salander — the tattooed hacker in the three Swedish films of Stieg Larsson’s best sellers — that friends told her, “You’ve been in there a while now, Noomi. Maybe it’s time to come out.” And when the shoot was over, she says, “my body just threw her out from me. I was sick for a week.” The trilogy was a worldwide hit, and Rapace, 31, was the great new face of 2010. She won’t reprise Lisbeth in the U.S. remake, but it’d be a shame if Hollywood let this 21st century Garbo stay in Sweden.