Noomi Rapace is wooing and tattooing Hollywood

Image Credit: Venturelli/WireImage.comThe basic tenets of American tourism also apply to the way we treat foreign films and actors: We probably won’t visit you where you live, because you speak a language other than English and we get confused easily, but you are more than welcome to come here. Immigrant labor has long helped prop up Hollywood and add a bit of spice to all the dime-a-dozen Midwest and London accents, all the way from Marlene Dietrich to Marion Cotillard. Sweden in particular has been a snowy wealth of fodder for American entertainment, with Greta Garbo, Ingrid Bergman, Alexander Skarsgard and this guy all making it big on our shores.

The latest Scandinavian import is actress Noomi Rapace, known best for her role as Lisbeth Salander, a.k.a. “The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo,” in the Swedish adaptations of Stieg Larsson’s Millenium Trilogy. According to the LA Times, Rapace is close to signing onto The Last Voyage of Demeter, a film about the westbound journey of another immigrant looking to sink his teeth into the English-speaking world: Dracula. Add this to the Sherlock Holmes 2 role she’s already banked and the Mission: Impossible 4 and Alien-prequel roles she is rumored to be in talks for, and it’s clear that even Americans suffering from the all-too-common disorder of subtitle-phobia will soon be familiar with her. Luckily, she seems to be imbued with some of that Swedish good sense. “I think it’s very important to keep a distance from the celebrity world,” she told EW in a recent feature on her. “If you let everybody into your personal life, then people will shortly be bored, because they know everything about you.”

I always imagined Hollywood’s relationship with non-American actors to be like a foreign exchange program. Like, Juliette Binoche would stay at Meryl Streep’s house for a month or two, and they’d go to the mall and hang out, and Streep would introduce her to all her friends, including John Cusack, who would fall in love with her after she helps fix his Camaro, and then she would cheer him on as he challenges the captain of the ski team to a race down K-12. Oh, wait, that’s the plot of Better Off Dead. In any case, I’m rooting for Rapace to do well as she makes the transition into American films, specifically that she doesn’t end up just getting stuck with token supporting roles in big-budget films, and she’ll be allowed to demonstrate the talent that drew producers to her in the first place. What do fans think of her move to Hollywood? How many of you are actually familiar with her, and those of you who aren’t, are you open to giving a chance to this gal from Hudiksvall?

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