It’s really no surprise. The actual girl with the dragon tattoo is completely hypnotic. And she’s not the norm. As a result, the actress that took this role had to do a complete 180 to become the character. Everyone wants to know how she did it, how it affected her life, if it still haunts her. IonCinema.com’s Stephen McNamee found out in the most in-depth interview we’ve seen yet with Dragon Tattoo’s Noomi Rapace.

Stephen McNamee: Lisbeth Salander, she’s such a prominent, well fleshed out character in the book, so I was curious about your and [director] Niels Andres Oplev’s collaborative process when you were trying to figure out how to play Lisbeth on screen?

Noomi Rapace: I always try to use myself and dig for myself as much as I can. I don’t like to pretend things. I don’t like to fake things. I have to fully understand the person that I’m going to be in a way and then translate experiences and feelings and emotions and things I’ve gone through into her. I read the book a couple of years before so when I met Niels I had a pretty clear picture of who I thought Elisabeth was, and I said to him that if you want me to play her, I think I know who she is and I want to transform into her and do a lot of things to become her. I wanted to change my body. I wanted to be a little bit more masculine and get rid of my female body. I wanted to be more like a boy. I wanted to be able to do all the fighting scenes, so I wanted to go into martial arts training. I trained a lot in Thai boxing and kickboxing with this crazy Serbian guy five days a week. I did a lot of preparation, and I also took motorcycle driving lessons, and I cut my hair and pierced myself.

So she [Lisbeth] slowly in a way grew in me, and I was talking to Niels all this time, and we were working with the script, and we were looking for her and I felt like she was coming out of me in a way, but I always try not to analyze myself so much. Sometimes it’s very difficult to put words on things, so I said to Niels, “Take it easy. I know. I can’t explain, but I know that she will be here and she will come.”…So we worked slowly trying to find her. I always try to prepare as much as I can and then when it’s time for the shooting, I want to be at the point where I can let go of control and I don’t have to think “Where is the character?” because she’s inside of me.

Read the full interview on IonCinema.com