Deadline Awards/Line:
Lisbeth Salander, misanthropic Watson to Mikael Blomkvist’s investigative journalist Sherlock Holmes in Stieg Larsson’s novel The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo, is by nature a rule-breaker. Look no further than her day job as a hacker; a means of assaulting the society that scarred her. To get Lisbeth to jump off the page, it required an actress with both an adolescent punkish attitude as well as a glacial resilience. Furthermore, like Noomi Rapace who originated the part in the original Swedish trilogy, the role required a starlet whose image wouldn’t cloud moviegoers’ perception of the character’s unorthodoxy (reasons why such Salander candidates as Natalie Portman or Scarlett Johansson were passed over for Sony’s Stateside remake). Director David Fincher’s expectations were smashed by Rooney Mara, the straight-laced girl he cast to reject Jesse Eisenberg’s Mark Zuckerberg in The Social Network. (Cinema, Rooney Mara, The Academy Awards)