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EXCLUSIVE: Is it an exaggeration to say not since Gone with the Wind has the actress casting search for a studio film captured such attention? The decision on who’ll play Lisbeth Salander in Sony Pictures Entertainment’s The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo continues. Director David Fincher tested actresses this week and will hold another testing this Sunday. I’ve heard that Fincher will test as many as six actresses this time, and the stakes have been raised. Daniel Craig will read alongside the aspirants, and each of them will get the full hair, makeup, wardrobe, and piercings treatment, which wasn’t done in the earlier tests. This should give Fincher a sense of who is the best match to play the rogue computer hacking genius – one of the most complex roles to come along for a young actress in a very long time.
Right now the actresses who are being seriously considered may still include Inception’s Ellen Page, Mia Wasikowska (Alice in Wonderland), Emily Browning (Sucker Punch), Sarah Snook (Sleeping Beauty), Rooney Mara (The Social Network), Sophie Lowe (Blame) and now French actress Lea Seydoux. Browning and Wasikowska didn’t make test deals, while Page sent in her own. Fish Tank discovery Katie Jarvis is a late entry but she isn’t testing Sunday.
Sony Pictures will release the first filmed installment of Stieg Larsson’s bestselling trilogy of books on December 21, 2011, and will begin production in early fall. Steve Zaillian wrote the script and Scott Rudin is producing. Rudin and Fincher just collaborated on The Social Network.
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Mike you’re such a DRAMA QUEEN! Haha! “Not since Gone With the Wind…” spare me.
No kidding! “NOT SINCE THE INVENTION OF FIRE HAS THE HUMAN RACE BEEN SO CAPTURED BY A SINGLE EVENT!!!”
Mike Flemmings’ seriousness just dropped a few notches.
“NOT SINCE THE CREATION OF OUR SOLAR SYSTEM…”
LMFAO. I’m with you. Mike obviously has lost his marbles tonight.
Sorry, Mike–the search for Salander isn’t nearly as huge as the one for Scarlett, which took at least two years, IIRC.
This one is more comparable to the search for Amber in FOREVER AMBER. And that concludes your weekly installment of “Hollywood Hype Nitpicking.” 
“Is it an exaggeration…?”
Yes. Yes, it is.
I swear these studio heads are clueless!! Do they watch anything at all on TV to scout for talent that would be a complete match between character and actress! Yes I have ONE particular young actress in mind, and yes she has a body of work! I challenge Mr Rudin and Mr Fincher to give Allison Scagliotti of SyFy’s “Wherehouse 13″ a read through and screen test, and then they will without any doubt know that she is “the One”!! Take a look for yourselves, and tell me what you think!??
AAAAArgh! If these are the choices….please cast the French one. It seems that the only trait Fincher thought was important was her height! So…a bunch of boring….not bad ass sexually or emotionally…not skinny…not flat chested….just short. I will not go any where near a movie where I might see Ellen Page nude and/or having sex with anyone, much less Daniel Craig!
Where on earth is Evan Rachel Wood? Or someone like her?
Not all those actresses are around the same height, are they? I thought the chick from Alice in Wonderland was tall.
Nope….Mia Wasikowska is not tall. But she’s not badass enough for this role.
Watch her in the HBO show InTreatment. She is fantastic in that I can easily see her pulling off the Salander rainbow of emotions
**Pounds head on desk in frustration** Are there REAL American actresses anymore?
Yes, there are real American actresses, Vinnie. The problem is film studios care more about looks than talent so the “real American actresses” are all doing theater. Is it a crazy idea to pluck someone from a Broadway or Off-Broadway play who has been kicking ass 8 times a week but hasn’t gotten a shot in a movie? Based on this list, I guess I’m asking for the impossible. Why not just hire Megan Fox and call it a day.
Hear, hear!
No way is an artist like David Fincher more concerned about an actresses’ height than her talent. I think that’s psycho fans of the book spinning bullshit. Who cares if she’s short or tall? Just make sure I believe the chick is completely fucked up after being brutally raped and totally capable of brutally raping the same guy as revenge.
Ummm…. not everyone has read the book yet. Thanks for the spoiler alert.
Height is a major requirement. It is central to the plot in all three books. If she’s not short and child like, the plot falls apart in several places.
I like Anna Paquin for this. Plus, she fits his height requirement.
Anna Paquin or Keira Knightley would have been my picks for Lisbeth. Both have no problem doing nudity, which is a requirement for the role and they’re older in their mid 20s. They also have the body type for the role. Casting an older actress would be good especially since some of the sex scenes described in the book are graphic and very exploitative.
I wonder if the reason that Paquin’s name wasn’t in any lists was because either no writer thought of her or her availability. I’m sure the start of True Blood S4′s shooting might have overlapped with GWTDT’s shoot and caused TB’s start date to be pushed back. I wasn’t a fan of the suggestion of Kristen Stewart, but I’m sure that the Breaking Dawn shoot put her own of the running in the early stages.
Rooney Mara or Sophie Lowe for this all the way. Hands down. Two very talented, passionate actressess willing to take risks.
there’s no way i see ellen page playing a rogue, street wise female. no way. ellen is like the girl next door, but very smart. this role need the combo of jolie, the rogue of rodriguez and the smart of page but without page. with sex appeal
She’s only the girl next door if you haven’t seen Hard Candy or Mouth to Mouth, or An American Crime. Try any of those movies and see Page metamorphosized from Juno to someone much darker. And these were all films she made in her teens. Think how much more mature she is now in her acting.
May be too many obstacles, but if Anna Chapman, the confessed russian spy can act, her playing Lisbeth Salander would make this film even more of a box office spectacular.
Fear not:
They’ll screw it up as bad as Bridget Fonda for Anne Parillaud.
Fingers crossed for Ellen Page ! I’ve just seen Inception (and now I will rewatch Juno) and I was thinking during the whole film that “damn, she would be a PERFECT Lisbeth”.
See Hard Candy and then imagine her as Lisbeth with the guardian advocate
Absolutely! She would be perfect.
lisbeth had sex appeal! sense of danger in her eyes. Ellen doesn’t have this at all. Think about it. Have you even seen the original??
Did you Americans get some edited version of the novels published over there? Where does it describe Lisbeth as having ‘sex appeal’. I remember one line saying that she looks like she has just ‘emerged from a week long orgy’… but that’s not really sex appeal.
…and i was thinking they better not cast her for Lisbeth. She’d be awful. ZERO sex appeal.
You watched Inception and saw EP as Salander? Dude, what the fuck drug did you take? I want some. Seriously, I couldn’t stand EP in Inception. That whole film, I was praying Leo would just turn around and deck her in the face.
This film will be a badly clichéd hollywood afterbirth, literally. None of those actresses will come close to Noomi Rapace’s performance in the Swedish, screen adaptations of the books.
Would it be that awful for Hollywood to have Rapace reprise her role. She speaks perfect English.
I sure hope Charlotte Lapiditte wins the role! Her beauty is ethereal, yet her presence is palpable. And after the Nazis shot up the floor of her father’s house last year, the girl deserves a break.
Evan Rachel Wood is a no brainer. I don’t know another 20 something actress who has the chops, the martial arts skills, the sexuality, the body type and the balls to the wall attitude. Is Alice In Wonderland going to do the nudity? Noomi Rapace actually pierced herself. Is Rooney Mara gonna do that?
If you can’t get Wood….get an unknown and don’t settle! Amy Pascal you said this was not going to pull punches, remember?
Fincher….don’t f this up.
portia doubleday or mary elizabeth winstead
this is ridiculous. Fincher has made his choice..just Rudin and Amy don’t like his choice and are making him do this. They are less than 7 weeks out from shooting.
This is what he gets for turning in a fantastic film to them on time and on budget
(A Social Network) The way Amy and Sony treat A-List Directors is ridiculous.
who’s Fincher’s choice? you really think anyone would tell him what to do? No.
The rumor I heard is that David Fincher wants Rooney Mara who has 2 or 3 scenes in his Facebook movie. I also heard she crapped out in her first screen test but David F believes in her so much that he’s been secretly rehearsing w/her to make sure she’s super prep’d for the next screen test. Its not fair to criticize Sony for being concerned. They are the ones bankrolling the $75 million for the movie to get made. If it flops they eat the cost while David F still walks away with his full paycheck. John Badham was considered an A-List director when he insisted to WB that Bridget Fonda was the only one who could replace Anne Parillaud and we all know how that turned out. If Fincher wants complete creative control w/out input from a studio he should finance his own movies. He can definitely afford it by now.
this is such total bs. fincher’s favorite is so not RM
So true ‘peteNY’, the treatment of A-list directors is one of the pressing issues of our time, practically a national disgrace.
Ridiculous indeed! Thank you for bringing it to the attention of this forum.
It is a pity this is with Sony. They don’t know platinum from aluminum.
What happened to that rock singer Fincher liked?
Yo-Landi from Die Antword was apparently OFFERED the role by Fincher but she (wisely) declined it. For my money, she LOOKS ever bit the Lisbeth role but she has no acting background. I’m a bit surprised that Fincher would have gone so far as to extend an offer for the role to her given the magnitude of the part… but it’s a moot point. It was offered and she declined it, according to a number of sources I read late last week.
Would rather watch Noomi Rapace in The Girl Who Played with Fire for the third time.
I’d rather watch Noomi Rapace in ANY of the three films. She is perfection as Lisbeth. I won’t be able to sit through the Americanized version of this.
Thanks Mike – please keep us updated. Some of us really appreciate it.
On the other hand, Se7en was one great creepy film. If he makes it DAVID FINCHER’S “Girl With The Dragon Tattoo” who knows how it could turn out?
ZODIAC was aces, too–it had a terrific sense of period and the acting was wonderful across the board.
The first person I thought of when I read “The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo” and imagined Lisbeth Salander was a hauntingly beautiful and interesting girl who tried out for but didn’t make American Idol a few years ago, Rose Flack. Maybe it is her life story which gives her gravitas, but Rose Flack would be a brilliant choice.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZfmCTNuNyxg
Why can’t he cast the girl from the original film? She was fantastic.
She said that (I’m paraphrasing) she enjoyed playing the part but she’s done with it. She wants to move on to other roles.
she’s too old now. Lisbeth is supposed to be 18ish.
You see the movie chris? Lisbeth’s not ’18ish’. She’s 24 hard-lived- years old.
@Doug and Skip: Ellen Page could still play a high school freshman tomorrow. ‘Juno’ is Lisbeth Salender? Whatever, guys.
Has to be Ellen Page. Anyone who has actually read the source text knows the role fits her like a glove.
Mia or Emily all the way! Please not Ellen. Zero sex appeal there for the males. Maybe the french girl?
ew.com reported that Natalie Portman had been offered to play Lisbeth Salander, but she turned it down.
http://hollywoodinsider.ew.com/2010/07/28/girl-with-the-dragon-tattoo-casting/
Natalie Portman said that she won’t do nude scenes, and I guees it is why she turned down the role.
http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/films/news/natalie-portman-has-a-no-boobs-policy-1859494.html
she was nude in that short that accompanied the darjleeing limited wasnt she?
‘discreetly’ nude.
Katie Jarvis from “Fish Tank” is an inspired choice. If you haven’t seen it, do so immediately. She’s fantastic.
she’s a great idea for me! she’s skinny but strong
Yes…Katie Jarvis for the win!
why?????????? we don’t need this movie or want it. It’s just been done.
Thank you.
What happened to the singer Fincher wanted?
The singer had turned down the offer.
http://hollywoodinsider.ew.com/2010/07/28/girl-with-the-dragon-tattoo-casting/
I hate that Hollywood is remaking this. Whoever they cast in the role, I can’t see them coming close to the perfection Noomi Rapace displayed original Swedish film adaption.
I won’t be surprised if they cast Page, though I think she looks too young for the role.
Anyway, we all know this film is going to suck compared to the original.
if you read the books, she’s supposed to look very young
I don’t understand. I’m reading the second book right now and Lisbeth’s just been mistaken for a child. How old do you think she’s supposed to look?
She’s supposed to look 14 but is 24. it’s got to do with her body I think more than face.
She’s 24 but because of her body she looks about 14.
“Get me a young Joan Jett!!”
What? No Jennifer Lee Wiggins. Some roles are tailor made, but hey… let’s just run with the same old, same old.