According to director David Fincher. Fincher was speaking to Vogue as he prepares to unleash his version of Girl With The Dragon Tattoo in cinemas this December. The director went through an exhausting process in order to find the right actress to play the lead role of Lisbeth Salander. Fincher told the magazine "We flew in people from New Zealand and Swaziland and all over the place,” he says. “Look, we saw some amazing people. Scarlett Johansson was great. It was a great audition, I’m telling you. But the thing with Scarlett is, you can’t wait for her to take her clothes off.” Played by Swedish actress Noomi Rapace in the original, Salander presents one of the most challenging roles in recent cinema, with her character the very definition of the anti-hero.
"I keep trying to explain this," he goes on. "Salander should be like E.T. If you put E.T. dolls out before anyone had seen the movie, they would say, ‘What is this little squishy thing?’ Well, you know what? When he hides under the table and he grabs the Reese’s Pieces, you love him! It has to be like that."
Fincher eventually decided to cast Rooney Mara in the lead role, having worked with her previously on The Social Network. "He sat me down and gave me this long spiel about all the bad things that are going to come to whoever plays this part. He said something like, ‘Vivien Leigh was incredible in A Streetcar Named Desire, but she will always be Scarlett O’Hara, and you need to be prepared for that.'"
The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo is due for release on the 21st of December.
Via Vogue Magazine