Rooney Mara Vogue Magazine November 2011

Rooney Mara promotes Girl With The Dragon Tattoo in character as Lisbeth Salander on the cover of American Vogue November 2011. I don’t hate this cover, even though I’m vaguely against the David Fincher remake with slightly-prettier people speaking English in the near scene-for-scene remake of the 2009 Swedish movie (based on the books). Incidentally, Mara also worked with Fincher ‘for four days, over 2,400 takes’ as Erica Albright, the main character Mark Zuckerberg’s girlfriend, on The Social Network. I’ve not read the GWTDT books, yet. But after the half-hearted pearl-clutching about the remake for people too lazy to read subtitles/ closed captions, I did watch the Swedish movie. I live-tweeted/FBd my reactions to it, even the scenes a weak-stomached Daniel Craig was shocked by in Esquire, saying, ‘[Fincher] showed me some scenes recently, and my hand was over my mouth, going, Are you f**king serious?’ My reaction to one of the movie’s key scenes was… ‘Girl With The S**T JUST GOT REAL Tattoo.’ And that really sums it up. The 2009 movie, anyway. The Fincher version’s unoriginal, but on the same page in its copy pasta of the original’s violence. Well, here’s Mara, cast in the role originally taken by Noomi Rapace. With the tiny, harsh bangs and the focus on pale skin and ghoulish make-up that make her looked washed-out inside the issue. Her interview, trailer, her in TSN and the 2009 trailer are below along with the rest of Mara’s Vogue photo shoot.

On the 2011 version poster with her boobs exposed: ‘There’s a certain way people are used to seeing nude women, and that’s in a submissive, coy pose, not looking at the camera,’ Mara says. ‘And in this poster, I’m looking dead into the camera with no expression on my face… I think it freaks a lot of people out.’
On her physicality compared to Rapace’s: ‘One of the things that make our version that much more heartbreaking,’ says Mara, ‘is that even though I am playing a 24-year-old, I look much younger. I look like a child.’ [Asked] if she had to get unhealthily skinny for the role. She says, ‘Umm… not really.’
On her pre-GWTDT style: ‘Before, I dressed much girlier,’ she says. ‘A lot of blush-colored things. Now I literally roll out of bed and put on whatever is there. I have really enjoyed being a boy this last year.’ Then… ‘[they] cut my hair, shaved the sides, bleached the eyebrows, then dyed my hair black,’ she says. ‘Then we went and did the piercings; all in one day. I went in looking like Erica Albright and I came out like this.’ Was she traumatized? ‘The eyebrows were the biggest shock because that really changed my face, and I didn’t recognize myself. But I was fine because I knew it was going to be really helpful for getting into character.’
On her personality fitting the part: ‘I am very slow to warm,’ Mara says. ‘I’ve always been sort of a loner. I didn’t play team sports. I am better one-on-one than in big groups.’ This, she says, is one reason she gets the character. ‘I can understand wanting to be invisible and mistrusting people and wanting to understand everything before you engage with the world.’
On her background: Mara’s great-grandfathers are Tim Mara, who founded the New York Giants, and Art Rooney, founder of the Pittsburgh Steelers. Because of this lineage, phrases like football heiress and trust-fund baby get thrown around in the press ‘I don’t have a trust fund,’ she says. ‘I grew up in a little cul-de-sac in the suburbs and went to public school. I went to Costco on the weekends.’ Mara seems almost pained to be so defensive. ‘When my great-grandfathers founded those teams it cost, like, $500. My dad is one of eleven children. I am one of 40 grandchildren. What bothers me about the whole trust-fund thing is that it sort of presumes that everything is handed to you. And if there is one thing about my family that I do identify with, it is that everyone is extremely hardworking. Also, the people whom I grew up with all did things they really loved. And I think that’s an important lesson.’
On why she nearly quit acting: Pre-Fincher, her biggest role was in the disappointing 2010 reboot of the Nightmare on Elm Street franchise. Mara minces no words about the experience. ‘I hated it,’ she says. ‘It left me thinking, If this is what is available to me, then I don’t necessarily want to be an actress. And then I got the script for The Social Network.’
On working with a successful director: ‘Where do I go from here?’ she says. ‘I’ve been trying to really live in the moment because I will never get this part of it back. As soon as the movie comes out, everyone will turn it into what they believe it is, so I’ve really been trying to appreciate every minute of now. Because I know what’s coming.’ She is perhaps rightfully wary about the media circus that is sure to accompany the film’s release. ‘That kind of fame is not something I ever wanted for myself,’ she says. ‘It just so happens that this huge, gigantic monster of a film came around that also happens to have the most incredible character that I ever could have dreamed up. But my fear with a movie like this is the kind of exposure you get from it. I think that can be death to an actor. The more people know about you, the less they can project who you are supposed to be. It’s unfortunate that you really only get one shot at that. After this, I won’t be able to be that girl again.’
On the aftermath of the notorious physical scenes: ‘I don’t know how to describe it. I think, physically, it was hardest. I got really beat up. But I gave myself a few days and then I was fine.’