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United In Darkness
In David Fincher’s bleak but compelling thriller, ‘The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo’, actors Daniel Craig and Rooney Mara play emotionally battered characters whose only hope is each other.
Thousands of miles from the icy, bone-aching cold of deep-winter Sweden, actors Daniel Craig and Rooney Mara are ensconced in New York City's Crosby Street Hotel, a chic establishment located in the trendy neighbourhood of Soho. They're here to talk about the new thriller, The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo, based upon late author Stieg Larsson's literary phenomenon. Both actors have a lot riding on the film, which is directed by David Fincher, a perfectionist and noted hard task-master who has established himself as a master navigator of dark cinematic territory with the likes of Se7en, Fight Club and Zodiac.
The stakes are indeed high, and Craig and Mara have chosen a very dark horse upon which to lay their bets. The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo and its two sequels, The Girl Who Played With Fire and The Girl Who Kicked The Hornets' Nest, are books that everyone seems to have read, jolting expectations up to nose-bleed heights. Added to that is the not inconsiderable fact that all three books have already been adapted for the screen in their native Sweden, and have been released across the world to great acclaim. Moreover, the film is dark, controversial, occasionally ugly, and anything but a surefire blockbuster. But that was exactly the right kind of bait to twine onto the hook when it came to luring in big fish Daniel Craig, who recalls, "The first question that I asked was, ‘Is this going to be PG-13? Is it going to be a film for everyone?' Because I saw no point in making that version. What's great about the books is that they deal with adult matters, forbidden and difficult subject matters - it deals with violence toward women, it touches on Nazism - and those subjects are interesting and worth talking about."
Craig's weathered, unconventionally handsome visage and jaded physical suggestion of a life truly lived are perfect for his character. Mikael Blomkvist is a disgraced investigative financial journalist employed by the wealthy Henrik Vanger (Christopher Plummer) to look into the disappearance of his beloved niece, Harriet, who vanished from his isolated island mansion over forty years ago. With an upcoming prison sentence for libel against a Swedish tycoon hovering over him like a horrible black cloud, Blomkvist throws himself into the case with vigour, winding his way through a labyrinth of family secrets and betrayal, and uncovering a story that is marked by such horrors as rape, torture, institutionalised brutality, and monstrous misogyny.
The emotionally battered Blomkvist initially maintains an almost existential air of detachment as this passion play of perversity unfolds around him, but soon begins to feel excitement about every new discovery, and sympathy for the victims that he unearths. "I could relate to him," says Craig. "I've known journalists most of my adult life. I know their attitude, and I keyed into that. I also responded to the sense of where Blomkvist is in his life, and how he got there. He'd been working very hard to get to this point. He was editing his own magazine, and he was a voice that was listened to. He was respected and hated in equal measures within his profession, and he has just had his nuts cut off. That's where you meet him."
After spending way too much of this day's three hours of press duties trying to dodge questions about being a star and, from female writers, about what he finds sexy about the opposite sex, the casually-dressed Craig's response when asked what he likes about his character comes as no surprise. "He's not a bullshitter," the actor says with a wry smile. "That's why he's so appealing, including to women. He's flawed. He's an egotist. But he has a very strong moral centre. His ego gets in the way sometimes, and he has a Jesus Christ complex, like most men. That's his downfall."
The biggest surprise of Blomkvist's investigation is Lisbeth Salander, the tough-as-nails computer hacker who becomes his ally and constant source of fascination. In the Swedish adaptations of the books, she was played with gritty subtlety by newcomer Noomi Rapace. True to form, Fincher bravely cast a relative unknown in the role. After a major part in the barely seen A Nightmare On Elm Street remake, and one punchy scene in Fincher's acclaimed 2010 drama The Social Network, Rooney Mara had the part that almost every young A-list actress in Hollywood coveted placed in her largely untested hands.
As far as Craig is concerned, Fincher did indeed get it just right. "She's fantastic in this part," he raves about his young co-star. "I was incredibly impressed by her commitment and openness to what playing this part would do to her, and how it affected and changed her. She's incredibly level-headed, and takes her work very seriously. She was not affected in an ephemeral way. Her work was not about suffering; she just got on with it and did it. She soaked it up and became that part. It was literally like having a fifteen-year-old boy walking around the set in a bad mood most of the time; that's what Salander in the book is all about. What's so extraordinary about Rooney is that on some days she looked like that, but she's incredibly sexy as well. She has this impish sexuality which really comes across in the movie."
Mara is equally compelling in person. Dressed conservatively, with her hair tied back primly, there's nothing about the actress that immediately calls attention to itself, a million miles from the frosty, intimidating exterior presented by Lisbeth Salander. Like Salander, however, Mara volunteers nothing, but there is an undeniable sweetness to her, and her reticence is more than likely due to her being new to press functions. "I think that a big reason that I got the part over some well known actresses is that people weren't as familiar with me," Mara offers, with frankness and modesty. "David Fincher is smart enough to know that one of the main reasons people love the character so much is because she's such an enigma. So to cast someone that people are so familiar with and have their own ideas about would probably be a huge disservice to the character."
The shoot was difficult for both Craig and Mara. Though David Fincher's predilection for doing take after take after take wasn't as prevalent on The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo as it has been on his past movies, there were enough brutal scenes in the script to make the shoot difficult for both actors. The most notable is the infamous scene in which Lisbeth Salander is raped. "The whole movie was a challenge," says Mara. "All the scenes were challenging. No one scene was harder than the next. The rape scene was hard, but in a different way. I don't know if there is a way to direct someone through a scene like the rape scene. In that case, it was definitely more technical directing from David, because there's only so much that you can direct in a scene like that."
Craig approached the shoot's harsher moments with a typically British method. "You have to take your sense of humour to the set, especially when you're dealing with stuff like in this movie," the actor says. "Rooney had to go through really tough scenes. Thank God, she's resilient and has a sense of humour. She had a lot to deal with. I was put through it as well. You have hard days, and then you laugh most of the time. You try to keep your energy level up. The days are long, so the more that you can laugh and enjoy each other's company - or just have a row - is great. Whatever gets you through the day!"
The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo is released January 12. This is an excerpt from a feature story that can be found in the current edition of FilmInk for the iPad. For more from Daniel Craig, Rooney Mara, as well as director David Fincher, download it here.
