'Girl With The Dragon Tattoo' Star Says She's 'Done' With Lisbeth Salander

'I've moved on and I don't want to repeat myself,' she says of the Swedish adaptations of Stieg Larsson's 'Millennium' trilogy.
By Eric Ditzian, with reporting by Josh Horowitz

Noomi Rapace
Photo: MTV News

There's probably a country somewhere in the world where Stieg Larsson's "Millennium" trilogy hasn't become a best-seller. For years, the Swedish author's crime thrillers — starting with "The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo" and concluding with "The Girl who Kicked the Hornet's Nest" — have been flying out of bookstores all over the world.

But as Larsson fans know, the series about journalist Mikael Blomkvist and hacker Lisbeth Salander may not be over. Though Larsson died in 2004, he reportedly completed three-quarters of a fourth "Millennium" book, and he may have even started on a fifth.

The first three novels have already been made into Swedish films; in those movies, Salander was portrayed by Noomi Rapace, an actress now co-starring in the sequel to "Sherlock Holmes" and rumored to be up for the "Alien" prequel.

Though the "Millennium" films have launched Rapace to international stardom, she has vowed never again to play Salander, even if films were to be crafted from Larsson's other manuscripts.

"It's done. I'm done with her," she told MTV News while promoting "The Girl who Kicked the Hornet's Nest." "I did everything I could and she was in my life very strong for one and a half years, and then I left her. I've moved on and I don't want to repeat myself."

Stepping into the role of a character who has become something of a folk hero in Sweden was no easy task: She spent more than half a year learning to kickbox and ride a motorcycle, and she had to overhaul her eating habits to more closely resemble the small-framed Salander.

"When I was preparing, I did a lot of physical things and I felt like she was coming," Rapace explained. "I didn't want to force her. ... I drove a lot of motorcycles and I was on a diet, so my body changed slowly into her. Then I felt like she was coming. It was like small puzzle pieces that came into the right places."

Rapace is ready to turn the page.

"[Larsson] wrote three books and no one really knows how much there really is," she said. "There's a lot of rumors and I feel like it's better to leave it and say, 'This is it, OK, bye, now I'm off to something else and to new things.' "

Check out everything we've got on "The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo."

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