W Magazine (via The Playlist) offers up the cover for their movie issue and on it is our first look at Rooney Mara (The Social Network) as Lisbeth Salander, the lead character in David Fincher’s The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo. However, it gets more interesting than that.
First off, for the desired look of Lisbeth, a role first originated by Noomi Rapace in the Swedish adaptation of the best-selling “Millennium” trilogy of books written by the late Stieg Larsson, we get the following description:
The (temporary) dragon tattoo proved to be tricky: Fincher did not want it to look Asian or like it came out of a comic book. He finally settled on a dragon that could have been drawn by Escher–more like an engraving and quite beautiful. In one “very intense” day, Mara’s eyebrows were bleached, her hair chopped, and her lip, brow, nose, and nipple pierced. “I didn’t even have pierced ears,” Mara said, still sounding a little shocked. “They put four holes in each ear, and, weirdly, that hurt the most. It was all very organized. With David, everything is measured and carefully considered. He wants what he sees in his head.”
Rapace also got real piercings for the role so these aren’t necessarily “out of the ordinary” lengths Mara is going to that her predecessor didn’t, but the question is just how exactly will Fincher’s film be different from the Swedish adaptation? This is a question that article doesn’t necessarily answer, but does describe Steve Zaillan’s script as such:
The script, which captures the novel’s bleak tone (its original Swedish title was “Men Who Hate Women”), was written by Academy Award winner Steven Zaillian, who wrote Schindler’s List, and it departs rather dramatically from the book. Blomkvist is less promiscuous, Salander is more aggressive, and, most notably, the ending–the resolution of the drama–has been completely changed. This may be sacrilege to some, but Zaillian has improved on Larsson–the script’s ending is more interesting.
With the novel being read by so many people and even those that watched the three Swedish adaptations called out the changes made, it’ll be interesting to see the reaction from the faithful with the new adaptation. Fincher is quoted in the article saying, “Sony and Scott Rudin told me they wanted to be in the adult-film-franchise business… And they said, ‘We want you to kick the A in adult.’ They already had a release date–December 2011–but I wasn’t sure I wanted to do another movie about a serial killer. Then I read the script, and I called Scott and said, ‘I can’t imagine why you thought of me.'”
As far as the casting of Mara goes, Fincher admits, “The studio pressures you to pick a name,” referring to the early talk of Natalie Portman (she was exhausted); Scarlett JoÂhanÂsson (“Marilyn on a bike,” Fincher said); and others, like Jennifer Lawrence who was deemed too tall. Most interesting is to learn Fincher considered Fish Tank star Katie Jarvis at one point. I wasn’t as big a fan of Fish Tank and Jarvis’s performance as others, but that would have been interesting.
However, now seeing Mara as Salander I like the look, but Mara was skeptical at first, telling W, “Before I read the book, I didn’t think I could do it… I locked myself in a room for a week and read all three books, and decided I really wanted to be Lisbeth. But I thought I had no shot at it.” Then we come to learn just what scene Fincher used for the girls’ audition.
“We had five or six girls audition with the rape scene,” Fincher told W. “The girls had to kick a dildo up his ass. That’s Salander’s big scene, and we had to see if they could do it.” (*highlight the blacked out text for slight story spoilers*)
Mara told the mag, “David added the rape scene at the last minute, and I said, ‘Ohmigod! They must be really serious.’ They did one test, then another a week later. They shot me in the subway in L.A. in full hair and makeup with a motorcycle. Every day they had a new request. On a Monday morning, David called me in, and I said, ‘What do you want me to do to my hair now?’ I was at the end of my rope. He told me I had the part. I hadn’t even read the script yet.”
You can read the entire piece right here and it is actually well worth the read. I can only assume the news stand edition will have additional photos, which may also prove interesting.
The Girl with Dragon Tattoo hits theaters on December 21 and along with Mara stars Daniel Craig, Stellan Skarsgård, Robin Wright, Joely Richardson, Steven Berkoff, David Dencik and Christopher Plummer.
