For many, Sweden's Noomi Rapace is Lisbeth Salander -- the way Basil Rathbone is Sherlock Holmes and Sean Connery (for some) is still James Bond. But having made the hard-as-diamonds heroine of the late Stieg Larsson's "The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo" (and its two Swedish-made sequels) so indelible, Rapace had done all the Salandering she wanted to do.

"It was a bit scary," she said of the reaction to the movies, whose fanbase (going by book sales) numbered in the tens of millions before the movies even opened. "I think that everybody can understand her and love her for never giving up," Rapace laughed. "But you're like, 'Wait a minute, what kind of world would it be if we had a Lisbeth army?' "

In the wake of an army of American starlets having jockeyed for the role in an English-langauge version being directed by David Fincher, Rapace found herself in Venice, where director Pernilla August was premiering her drama "Beyond," in which Rapace plays a young mother with personal problems (though not, it should be stressed, Salander-sized problems). "I wasn't looking for something really different," said the Swedish-Spanish actress, 30. "It just came to me, and I liked the script. But I don't ever want to repeat myself."

She said she made it very clear early on that she had zero interest in the Fincher-helmed remake of "Dragon Tattoo" (in which Rooney Mara has been cast). "It doesn't matter who's going to direct the film or who the co-stars are," she says. "I couldn't see any reason for doing it again. But I had a great time."

© 2010 Variety