What’s so special about Rooney Mara?
Who’s that Girl With the Tattoo?

She’s a virtual unknown, but she landed the role of the decade.

Rooney Mara, 25, will play the part coveted by every A-list actress in Hollywood: the punk, bisexual hacker named Lisbeth Salander in the David Fincher-directed remake of Swedish thriller “The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo.”

And speaking of tattoos, some are comparing her to another once-unknown young beauty. “I worked with Angelina Jolie 13 years ago, before she was famous, and Mara reminded me of the same thing,” says director Samuel Bayer, who directed Mara in her only major role thus far, in last April’s “A Nightmare on Elm Street.”

What’s most astonishing, though, is the list of names she reportedly beat out: Scarlett Johansson, Natalie Portman, Ellen Page and Carey Mulligan among them.

When movie studio Sony and Fincher announced Monday that after a worldwide search, Mara had been tapped for the part, many fans were left asking, ‘Who?’ and running for Wikipedia.

(Mara is so unfamiliar that film-news site Ain’t It Cool posted an article about the casting — and mistakenly used a photo of Rooney’s slightly better-known actor sister, Kate, to identify her.)

But those few directors who’ve worked with her in the past say Mara has all the makings of a huge star.

“She has that great combination of mystery and familiarity,” says Miguel Arteta, who directed Mara in last year’s “Youth in Revolt.”

“There’s something about her eyes that inspires your imagination.”

“I had no doubt that she’d become a movie star,” he says. “I was just happy to get her for a small role on the way up.”

Bayer says that Mara has an intensity, a quality that no doubt helped her in the audition.

“She doesn’t behave like a normal 25-year-old. There was a depth to her personality that transcended the role,” he says.

Another factor that also may have helped: Mara has already worked for the notoriously difficult Fincher, in September’s “The Social Network,” the story of Facebook’s contentious founding. Mara’s sister Kate tells The Post that Rooney and Fincher get along well.

Their relationship gave Mara an edge in winning a role that Sony co-chairwoman Amy Pascal told film blog The Wrap was “the greatest character for a girl since I-don’t-know-what.”

Based on the late Stieg Larsson’s book, which has sold more than 5 million copies in the US alone, the thriller follows Salander, a bisexual computer expert hired by journalist Mikael Blomkvist (to be played by Daniel Craig) to help solve a decades-old missing-person case. Salander is promiscuous, almost autistic in her antisocial tendencies, and at one point, she is sexually assaulted. Rooney Mara, apparently, is not concerned.

“I think she had more worries about playing that thing on ‘Elm Street,’ ” says Mara’s maternal grandfather Tim Rooney, referring to “A Nightmare on Elm Street.”

The Salander role will require a lot from a performer in a movie that Sony has promised will be “very R-rated.”

“She was a very bright kid and a good student in school,” Tim says, “so she has the ability to grasp things quickly that maybe some other people wouldn’t.”

Physically, Mara seems an ideal choice to play a rakish Swede who has dyed her hair black.

“She’s Irish, but you really could make a case for her being Swedish,” says Tim, who is president of Yonkers Raceway.

“She has natural blond hair, she’s thin. She’s very pale and light-skinned, as you’d think someone from Sweden would be.”

Her grandfather says that Mara was quietly confident about her chances. “She’s not much of a braggadocio type of person, but she thought she did good in the audition, and when this was going along, she thought she had a good chance of getting the part.”

The competition was said to be among the most heated and closely watched since the frenzy to find a Scarlett O’Hara for 1939’s “Gone With the Wind.” MGM searched for two years to fill the role and reportedly considered dozens of actresses, including Lucille Ball and Bette Davis, before deciding on Vivien Leigh. Fans were initially outraged that Leigh, a Brit, had been chosen to play a Southerner, but the performance ultimately won her a Best Actress Oscar.

Mara’s casting has stirred up the same kind of debate among fans who wonder whether Mara can top the well-received Swedish adaptation of the book that starred striking Noomi Rapace as Lisbeth. (When phoned, Mara hung up without saying anything, and she did not return a text message asking for comment.)

Mara’s press shyness is odd, considering her family’s pedigree. Two of her great-grandfathers founded football’s New York Giants and Pittsburgh Steelers, and her father still works for Big Blue. Mara was raised in Westchester, and attended NYU before moving to LA in search of an acting career. She landed bit parts in episodes of “ER” and “Law & Order: Special Victims Unit” and a total of six films before breaking out with “A Nightmare on Elm Street.”

Being so closely associated with two professional football programs has exposed her to some of the pressures of fame, but nothing like what she’s about to experience.

“I don’t know how this is not going to change her life. It feels so huge, that it’s still sinking in,” says sister Kate Mara, who has appeared in “Iron Man 2” and “Entourage.”

“Even people who aren’t in the business know about the book.”

Kate told The Post that she and her sister talk every day, but that she learned the big news via text message. She’s now planning a send-off party before Mara leaves for Sweden to start shooting next month.

Those who have worked with the actor in the past say Mara’s already up to the task.

“One of the first times I saw her, I don’t know how long she had been acting but I was so pleasantly surprised. She did a really smart job,” says Avy Kaufman, a casting director who worked on “Salt” and had auditioned Mara for roles in the past.

“Ultimately she didn’t get the job because somebody else was more whatever-the-word-is. But her audition really stood out.”

As with “Gone with the Wind,” Mara’s casting will remain a source of debate until the film’s release (in late 2011).

“Hmm. [Rooney] doesn’t seem ‘bad’ enough. Maybe a lot of makeup and hopefully good acting will change that,” wrote one skeptic on the movie’s Facebook page.

“It’s at times like these that a DISlike button would come in handy,” snarked another.

Zeta Interactive, a marketing firm that monitors online activity, reports that Rooney’s “tonal buzz” has increased 11 percent to 92 percent positive after she captured the role of Lisbeth, meaning fans seem to be happy.

But if she or the filmmakers disappoint, there will be hell to pay. One online critic writing on Popeater lamented Hollywood’s ability to ruin great books. “I am ALWAYS DISAPPOINTED,” the griper wrote. “I hope I am NOT disappointed this time around. STICK TO THE STORY . . . the author would be rolling in his grave otherwise.”

Source: The NY Post

Below is the video of Rooney and her fellow champions of Kenya talking about their respective charities and experiences.

138 x Screen Captures – 05.26.10: 1st Annual Kenya Charity Gala

Rooney Mara looks exhausted, and that makes sense. Last June, the pettite actress was on the set of A Nightmare On Elm Street, then in production at a bookstore in Chicago. Mara, the sister of Kate Mara and a rising star in her own right, plays the sleep-deprived Nancy Thompson, who’s on the run from the infamous and decrepit Freddy Krueger (Jackie Earle Haley), a serial killer who worms his way into people’s dreams and essentially slays them from within.

The April 30 release, of course, is a remake of Wes Craven’s 1984 horror flick of the same name, which cast Heather Langenkamp as Nancy and Robert Englund as Freddy. Johnny Depp played Nancy’s boyfriend in the old film, while Kyle Gallner has that role in the reboot. ScreenStar was among a handful of visiting journalists on the Elm Street set that day in June, and here’s some of what Mara had to say.

Have you been doing the sleep-deprived thing to help yourself get into character?
Yes, I have not been sleeping. The other boys don’t let me sleep. When we have really-really intense scenes I do try and limit my sleep to three hours. It helps, though. It really does help.

What do you do to fill the time? Wii?
No, I don’t play videogames. Actually, Thomas Dekker has been making me watch pretty much every movie possible. We’ve been watching all the John Cassavetes films. He’s been making me watch a lot of Michael Haneke films. He’s been making us watch every film possible. We watched Martyrs (2008). We’ve been watching a lot of scary movies, but also just old classics. So that’s what we do. We just watch movies.

One of the elements of the old film was that Nancy was a bit of a cross between Rambo and Macaulay Culkin in Home Alone. Any of that here, too?
There’s definitely some Rambo, definitely some Rambo. But it’s definitely a lot different from the original Nancy.

In what ways is your interaction with Freddy different from the older version?
I don’t know how much I can talk about that without giving stuff away. I think the Freddys are very similar, but also Jackie is bringing his own thing to it. I think it’s less comedic and more creepy-serious, but there’s still definitely comedy in it, in the Freddy in this.

Up to this point in the shoot, what’s been the most intense scene for you?
I don’t know about the most intense, but I know that the most painful was we had to do this scene with a motion-control camera, which was just awful. We had to do it in two different locations, for the nightmare part and then the reality part. (It was) crab-crawling backwards, and my arms were just bleeding and bruised. It’s definitely really hard when you have to be terrified of a sticker.

If you had the opportunity to go back and do the first film with Johnny Depp, would you trade Kyle for Johnny?
Oh, that’s mean! You know what? I love Kyle. I wouldn’t trade it. I wouldn’t.

But you’d want to work with Johnny?
Oh yeah, I’d work with Johnny on anything, on a Metamucil commercial.

Did you reach out at all to Heather Langenkamp?
No.

Did you want to?
I would definitely love to talk to her after we finish, for sure. But I think it’s so different that… not really. But definitely after. I would love to sit down and talk to her.

How are you enjoying working Jackie?
Jackie is the sweetest man I have ever met. He’s so easy to work with. He’s so giving as an actor. He makes it fun. We’ll just make it really creepy and intense, and then he’ll just say something totally inappropriate to break the ice.

In the original film there’s not a lot of Nancy-Freddy shared screen time. How about in the remake?
Yeah. I think there definitely is more. I don’t have as much as the other kids in terms of cool nightmares, but I have more with Jackie. I definitely do. We have a lot together.

In a perfect world, what will this film lead to for you? Some people become scream queens and embrace it. Heather basically got out of the business because she was being stalked.
Oh, God. Well, none of that!

She’s actually happily married to a movie makeup artist.
After this I just want to keep working. I want to do a bunch of different things. I’d love to do a period piece, get on some pretty costumes, a corset. There are a lot of people I’d love to work with, and I just want to keep working, traveling, learning.

Source: PopStar

Nightmare On Elm Street’s leading lady Rooney Mara insists shooting the remake of the 1984 horror classic was far from terrifying.

“Except for a few times where I was scared, it was not that scary but definitely exhausting, for sure,” she explained at the film’s Hollywood premiere.

The 25-year-old plays a new ‘Nancy’ in the movie, heading up a talented ensemble of young stars taking on the new Freddy Krueger (played by Watchmen actor Jackie Earle Haley).

“I was very nervous, but after sitting down with the director and talking about it, our version of Nancy was just so different that I had to forget about all the pressure and expectations and go with the Nancy that we created.”

If the reboot of the franchise proves a box office hit, Rooney confirmed Nancy will return in the next movie.

“Yes, I have one more if this one’s a success,” she said.

However, the actress admitted she wouldn’t usually pay to watch a scare-fest like Nightmare On Elm Street.

“I saw the original when I was 12. There was like three years when I was quite young that I loved horror films, but I don’t see them ever now, I don’t like being scared or watching them,” she laughed.

Source: Google

IESB was on set with a group of online journalists. Read the entire on set interview with A NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET cast member Rooney Mara who plays “Nancy Thompson”,

Q: Were you a fan of the original film?

Rooney Mara: I was. I saw it when I was 12 years old, I think. I was at a slumber party, and the older sister of the girl I was friends with was watching it with her friends and I saw it, and I really wish I hadn’t seen it when I was 12 because it really scarred me for life. I remember Tina’s death just freaked me out. I had that image in my head for years, her flying across the room.

Q: Is it weird being in the remake now after all that?

RM: Yeah, it is. It definitely is. I’m glad I don’t have to do that, though [laughs].

Q: You get to survive.

RM: Yes.

Q: Was it overwhelming to take on the role of Nancy, who’s sort of the original “final girl”?

RM: It’s definitely a lot of pressure, but our movie and our Nancy are quite different, so I don’t feel so much like you can compare the two.

Q: Can you tell us something we don’t already know about this version of Nancy?

RM: Um, well she’s described as “goth.” She’s not at all goth, except for the fact that goths are usually coined as disturbed.

Q: You’re sporting some black nail polish…

RM: It’s purple! [laughs] She’s goth in the sense that she’s, quite obviously, disturbed and quite and keeps to herself and can’t really open up to people or connect with people. And she feels really alone in the world because of things that happened to her when she was younger. But throughout the movie you see that change, and you see her grow, so it’s a good arc.

Q: Have you heard any feedback or response from Heather Langenkamp?

RM: No, I have not.

Q: Would you like to meet her?

RM: Yeah, I would definitely like to after we finish, for sure.

Q: What was it about her performance that you liked in the film?

RM: I think everyone liked just how sweet and wholesome she was, but at the same time she was obviously very strong and a survivor and she never gave up. I think that’s what people liked about her, that she was a real girl; she wasn’t like a supermodel or just some pretty face. She was a real person.

Q: Can you tell us what you went through to get all bloodied up like that?

RM: Um, I don’t know. Am I allowed? It happens during a micro-nap. You guys know about the micro-naps, right? I happened during a micro-nap. It’s a really, really cool scene, actually. Happens in the pharmacy.

Q: Talk about working with Jackie and also the first time you saw him in the makeup.

RM: Jackie, Jackie. Jackie’s like the sweetest man ever. When I met him, I was like “Ugh, I have to stay away from him, I can’t talk to him because it’ll just make it too hard.” But that’s impossible because it’s kind of hard to stay away from him because he’s such a nice guy. And the first time I saw in his makeup was on the set, and I actually started crying when I saw him [laughs]. They wouldn’t let me see him until we had to do a scene together. So then he came out, and he had his monk thing so he can hide from everyone. And I was trying so hard not to cry.

Q: What was his reaction?

RM: I was like, “Oh my God, I’m going to cry.” And he was like, “Yeah, so am I.” [laughs] Because it’s quite painful and uncomfortable in all that makeup, which makes me feel really bad for him, which makes it hard do the things I have to do to him.

Q: Can you talk about Nancy’s art and that part of your character?

RM: Her art? Yeah, since Nancy was little–it shows it in the flashbacks–she’s been an artist. I think it’s her only outlet; she just does that, almost to the point of like the way someone with autism does things repeatedly. She’ll just literally paint all night long. And the things she painting are repressed memories that she can’t understand or remember, so her art’s quite dark, and she keeps painting the same things but doesn’t know where they’re coming from or what they mean, and she sort of starts to figure it out throughout the movie.

Q: So do we see her paint throughout the movie, or are they just paintings that were already done?

RM: Um, yeah, you see her painting as a little kid and then throughout the movie, you’ll see her art. But yeah, there’s pretty much just one scene where you actually see me painting. I’m a terrible artist.

Q: Do the dreams or Freddy interact with those paintings in any way, kind of skewed in the dream world?

RM: Um, well a lot of the things that I’m painting are, like, the preschool where everything happened or the boiler room. I’m painting all the things from my dreams.

Q: Did you do any research on your own into dreams or sleep? They talked about the micro-naps and stuff like that.

RM: I did. I did a lot of research on sleep deprivation and the effects of that. And I’ve been trying to sleep deprive myself, which has been less fun.

Q: Any special tricks you do, rubbing your eyes before a shot or stuff like that, that you do to look like you’ve been awake for 70 hours?

RM: The makeup pretty much does that, as you can see right now, I look quite hideous. But no, I just haven’t been letting myself sleep that much. If we have a really intense scene, I try not to let myself get more than three hours of sleeps, and after a few days that’s quite draining.

Q: Does the intensity sort of spill over? Does it get too intense for you at times as a person?

RM: It does. Last night when I went home I was like a wreck. I was really spent, because yesterday was really intense, because it was all day one of the most intense scenes in the movie, crying the whole day. Seventy-five takes of just bawling my eyes out. So yeah, it’s hard to get there and then get home and to leave it. So it has been hard because there are a lot of those scenes in the movie. Tomorrow, especially, is going to be really hard.

Q: So you’ve signed on to multiple ELM STREETs…

RM: I have one sequel in my contract.

Q: So the news story today that said you’d signed on for three films…

RM: I heard that, yeah, that’s not right. [laughs] I mean, there’s only so long you can stay awake, right? You gotta die sometime.

Q: Well, in the original, she reappears in the third film. The second film has nothing to do with anything.

RM: Right. We’ll see what happens. Me and Jackie always joke that we want the sequel to be THE BRIDE OF FREDDY–that me and Freddy run off together. [laughs] She gives into it: “I wanna be your girlfriend, Freddy.”

Q: Did you revisit all the movies before?

RM: No I didn’t. I didn’t want to. Kyle’s actually never seen the first one, so we’re going to watch them when we’re finished. I didn’t want to have that in my head, because it’s so different. I didn’t want that to affect my performance. But we’re definitely going to watch them when we’re finished.

Q: What about some of the Platinum Dunes films. Did you kind of bone up on them?

RM: No, I’ve never seen any of them. I can’t go to horror movies. I watched every horror movie when I was 12 to 16, every horror movie. Then something just…I couldn’t any more, especially, I really don’t like slaughter movies, like SAW. I can’t watch those. They’re just too…

Q: So how would you describe this one though? They’re saying it’s not quite as comedic as the original NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET, so will people be traumatized? Is it kind of like that, torture?

RM: Yeah, but it’s not a slasher film. There’s a lot of story in this, and there’s a lot of story between each person’s death. You actually get to know the characters and you actually care about them before they die, which I think is different than the mindless gore that’s out there.

Q: Is that what drew you to it, because so many horror movies skip over the character development?

RM: Yeah, I wouldn’t have done it if it didn’t have that. I like psychological horror movies.

Q: Can you speak a little about to how Nancy’s strength in this one is different than how you remember it from the other ones?

RM: I think because this Nancy is coming from such a weak place to begin with, she’s just so alone in the world; the other Nancy was just a regular girl. This Nancy is very disturbed, so her growth is more. You get to see this girl come out of her shell, form a relationship with Quentin, and in the end she finally figures out why she is the way she is, and she’s able to do something about it.

Q: She embraces that?

RM: Yeah.

Q: Can you talk about her relationship with her mother, because that’s such a big part in the original?

RM: Yeah, we still have a lot to do with the mother. I think her relationship with her mother in this is…they don’t really have much of a relationship, because I don’t think Nancy has much of a relationship with anyone. It’s really hard for her to get close or open up to anyone, including her mother.

Q: And the father?

RM: No father.

Q: No where to be seen? No police officer father?

RM: Nope. Daddy issues all the way–no dad.

Q: Is the reason that Nancy is the way she is when we first meet her–can I go out on a limb and guess that maybe it’s tied to Freddy?

RM: Definitely is tied to Freddy. [laughs] That’s why the payoff at the end is so good.

Q: I’ve heard some things about them changing Freddy’s backstory, so that he could definitely be interacting with your character as much younger children.

RM: Yeah, there’s a lot of backstory in this one. A lot. And yes, there’s a lot with the children that I’m not really allowed to talk about, but it’s really good.

Q: Can you talk about this scene and what’s leading up to it, and where we are in the story?

RM: This scene is way at the end of the movie. We’ve found the preschool that we’ve been looking for. WE go into basement, and where I just was is Freddy’s old bedroom. I don’t know how much I can reveal. Basically at the end, there are so many micro-naps, you never know what’s real and what’s a nap, a micro-nap. And you’ll see the second part of the scene. What I just shot isn’t real; it’s still a part of a dream. And you’ll see that when we film the second half of it.

Q: Do you have any ideas in your head where you’d like to see Nancy go in a sequel?

RM: Besides being the Bride of Freddy? No. I mean, where can she possibly go? She need to be in a white padded room. I don’t know. That’s a good question; I haven’t really thought about that yet.

Q: In the sequels, she’s a therapist for kids. It’s years later.

RM: Yeah. Nancy could definitely be a therapist. She’s definitely been through enough where she could understand people. I’m just trying to get through this. I haven’t really thought about the future of Nancy.

Q: What do you have going on after this?

RM: Nothing. I’m going to do some traveling.

Q: You’re in YOUTH IN REVOLT, right?

RM: Yeah, that’s coming out…we don’t know when that’s coming out. It keeps changing.

Q: I just started seeing posters for it.

RM: Yeah, they just came out with the poster. I can’t wait to see it, but I haven’t seen it yet. I think it’s going to be really good. I love the book, so I’m excited to see it. It was nice to meet you all.

A NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET opens in theaters April 30, 2010.

Source: IESB.net

Seated towards the middle of the factory and away from the sights and sounds of filming, we wait around the table for cast and crewmembers to speak with us.

One of the first is Rooney Mara, who, fresh from shooting a scene, walks across the factory in impossibly high boots that would surely pose a problem when running from Freddy Krueger. Her cheery disposition stands in contrast to her character Nancy Thompson, who moments before was yelling at her friend and love interest Quentin to wake up or risk a showdown with the nightmare-stalking Krueger.

“She’s described as ‘goth,’” explains Mara, but “She’s goth in the sense that she’s, quite obviously, disturbed and quiet and keeps to herself and can’t really open up to people or connect with people. And she feels really alone in the world because of things that happened to her when she was younger. But throughout the movie you see that change, and you see her grow, so it’s a good arc.”

Today, every bit of Nancy’s character design and Mara’s look reflect that realness and depth. Nancy isn’t a token hot teen in the latest fashions despite her boots. She wears dark colors, purple nail polish, and a baggy cardigan that seems to swallow her slight figure. And while there’s no denying that Mara is a gorgeous woman in real life, as Nancy her eyes are darkened and her hair stringy from depriving herself of sleep.

“Rooney was someone who, to us, embodied that kind of natural, real girl thing that Nancy had in the original,” says Fuller. “Freddy Krueger is the star of the film, and everyone else has to be able to have the chops to keep up with him, but that’s the star of the movie. For all of the actors, we tried to find kids who had the chops to be really good.”

And those chops extend to emulating her character’s self-imposed insomnia.

“If we have a really intense scene, I try not to let myself get more than three hours of sleeps, and after a few days that’s quite draining,” she tells us. “Last night when I went home I was like a wreck. I was really spent, because yesterday was really intense, because it was all day one of the most intense scenes in the movie, crying the whole day. Seventy-five takes of just bawling my eyes out.”

Source (full feature): Latino Review