NOOMI RAPACE

Date of Birth
28 December 1979, Hudiksvall, Gävleborgs län, Sweden

Birth Name
Noomi Norén

Height
5' 4¼" (1.63 m)

Mini Biography
Swedish actress Noomi Rapace is the daughter of actress Nina Norén and Spanish Flamenco singer Rogelio Durán. Her parents did not stay together, and when Rapace was five she moved to Iceland with her mother and stepfather, where she lived for three years. When she was eight, she was cast in a small role in the Icelandic film, 'Í skugga hrafnsins', and this sparked her love of acting. At the age of 15, she left home and joined the Stockholm Theatre School.

Rapace went on to win the recurring role of Lucinda Gonzales in the Swedish TV series "Tre kronor" (1994), and also became a respected stage performer. She won critical acclaim for playing the leading role in 2007's Daisy Diamond (2007). In 2009, Rapace came to the attention of international audiences for her portrayal of Lisbeth Salander in The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo (2009). Her performance was widely praised, and she won the Best Actress prize at Sweden's prestigious Guldbagge Awards. She went on to reprise the role in the sequels, The Girl Who Played with Fire (2009) and The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest (2009).

Rapace made her English language film debut in Guy Ritchie's Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows (2011), alongside Robert Downey Jr. She was also cast as Elizabeth Shaw in Ridley Scott's Prometheus (2012/I).

Spouse
Ola Rapace (2001 - 2011) (divorced) 1 child

Trivia
She used the holes of her old piercings when she was a young punk rocker in her role as Lisbeth Salander in The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo (2009).

Has a son, Lev, born in 2003.

She has one sister, Særún Norén, who is a photographer.

She left home at age 15 to go to Stockholm, Sweden, to start her acting career.

At age 7, she got a non-speaking role in an Icelandic movie. She then decided to become an actress.

At age 5, she moved to Iceland with her mother and her stepfather.

Her mother, Nina Norén, is a Swedish actress. Her father, Rogelio de Badajoz, (1953-2007) was a Spanish cantador (a Flamenco singer) from Badajoz, of Roma descent.

Used some of her husband's (Ola Rapace) clothing for her wardrobe in the "Millennium" (2010) film series.

Is half Spanish, half Swedish.

Spoke very little English at the time she finished the Lisbeth Salander trilogy. In a determined attempt to master English as quickly as possible, Noomi watched numerous English language movies with native language subtitles disabled, along with hours of television channels such as BBC, CNN, and miscellaneous TV talk shows.

Insists on doing her own stunts whenever possible and to the absolute extreme extent a given production will safely permit her to do so.

Admires strong women roles such as Anne Parillaud as the indomitable La Femme Nikita (1990) and Patricia Arquette's feisty Alabama in True Romance (1993). She was particularly moved by the bloody motel fight scene between Arquette and James Gandolfini, after having watched the movie numerous times.

To date, counts her role in Daisy Diamond (2007) as her greatest emotional stretch as an actress. [2012]

Her second name "Rapace" (ruh-PASS), is from French ("predatory", "rapacious", "greedy"), a pseudonym adopted by Noomi's birth parents.

During her early teens, Noomi went through a period where she aspired to being a punk rocker in the vein of the late Nancy Spungen, one-time girlfriend of The Sex Pistols' Sid Vicious.


Personal Quotes
I'm interested in people's darker side, the ones that aren't easy and well balanced. The cracks.

We need more extreme movies in Sweden, personal projects that aren't necessarily made for a bigger audience. I think it creates a creative block to always have the audience as a goal.

I hate when you see a film and after one scene you know what's going to happen and you can predict the whole story. I hate that. I think it's very boring.

[on doing fight scenes in Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows (2011)] I tried to do as much as they allowed me to do. You get bruised, and your body aches, and you hurt yourself, but that's kind of part of it. I am very self-critical, and I don't like to pretend.


Where Are They Now
March 2012) Currently filming Passion (2013) in Berlin, Germany.