'Dragon Tattoo' Director Niels Arden Oplev Knows What Women Want: To Be Lisbeth Salander

When Niels Arden Oplev signed on to direct the Swedish adaptation of Stieg Larsson's The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, the book was a Scandinavian hit but not yet a global one. By the time the film crossed borders, both the novel and Noomi Rapace's ferocious Lisbeth Salander had become shorthand for a new kind of heroine.

Oplev is frank about what he thinks drives the character's appeal. Women, he says, don't want to date Lisbeth — they want to be her: untouchable, unsentimental, and armored against a world that has failed her. He fought to keep the novel's darkest material on screen, arguing that sanding it down would betray the moral rage Larsson wrote into the story.

He is equally frank about casting. Rapace auditioned over months, transformed her body, learned to ride a motorcycle and took up kickboxing; Oplev says the studio's early doubts evaporated the first day of dailies. The performance carried the film to more than $100 million worldwide — almost unheard of for a subtitled Swedish thriller.

With David Fincher's English-language version now shooting, Oplev is diplomatic but protective of his original: remakes are fine, he shrugs, but there is only one first Lisbeth. History split the difference — Rooney Mara earned an Oscar nomination, and Rapace's Salander remains the benchmark.