Noomi Rapace (; ; born 28 December 1979) is a Swedish actress. She achieved international fame with her portrayal of Lisbeth Salander in the Swedish film adaptations of the Millennium series (2009): The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, The Girl Who Played with Fire, and The Girl Who Kicked the Hornets' Nest. For her performance in the Millennium series, Rapace won amongst others two Nymphe d'Ors, a Guldbagge Award, and a Satellite Award as Best Actress, and was nominated for a BAFTA Award, an International Emmy Award and a European Film Award. Following the success of the Millennium series, Rapace has gone on to star in American movies.
She has also starred as Anna in Daisy Diamond (2007), Leena in Beyond (2010), Anna in The Monitor (2011), Madame Simza Heron in Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows (2011), Elizabeth Shaw in Prometheus (2012), Beatrice in Dead Man Down (2013), Nadia in The Drop (2014), Raisa Demidova in Child 44 (2015), and the eight lead roles in Unlocked (2017), What Happened to Monday (2017), Leila in Bright (2017), Rupture (2017), Bianca Lind in Stockholm (2018), Sam Carlson in Close (2019), Lizzie in Angel of Mine (2019), Harriet Bauman in Jack Ryan (TV series, 2019), Maja in The Secrets We Keep (2020), Maria in Lamb (2021), Lisa in The Trip (2021), Bosilka in You Won't Be Alone (2022) and Caroline Edh in Black Crab (2022).
Early life
Rapace was born in Hudiksvall, Sweden. Her mother, Nina Norén (born Kristina Norén; 1954), is a Swedish actress, and her father, Rogelio Durán (10 November 1953 – 4 November 2006), was a Spanish flamenco singer of Roma origin from Badajoz.
She has said her father may have been of part Romani descent, and though she is "not sure if it is true," she has "always been interested in the culture." Rapace's sister, Særún Norén, is a photographer.
Rapace has said she saw her father only occasionally before his death. At age five, she moved from her native Sweden to Flúðir in Iceland with her mother and stepfather, Hrafnkell Karlsson. Two years later, she made her film debut in a minor role in the Icelandic film In the Shadow of the Raven, along with Hrafnkell. "He was not around. The first time I saw him or I met him [until] I was fifteen and I saw him on stage", Rapace said about her father.
Rapace speaks fluent Icelandic, Danish, Norwegian, and English, in addition to her native Swedish.
Career
Early work
At the age of seven, Rapace was given her first film role, a non-speaking part in the Icelandic film In the Shadow of the Raven by Hrafn Gunnlaugsson. This experience prompted her to be an actress. She left home at age 15 and enrolled in a Stockholm theatre school.
In 1996, Rapace made her television debut playing the part of Lucinda Gonzales in the long-running soap series Tre kronor. From 1998 to 1999, Rapace studied at the acting school Skara Skolscen. She has been engaged at Theater Plaza in 2000–01, Orionteatern in 2001, Teater Galeasen in 2002, Stockholms stadsteater in 2003, as well as at the Royal Dramatic Theatre, all in Stockholm.
In 2007, she won acclaim for her award-winning portrayal of a troubled teen mother in the Danish film Daisy Diamond, directed by Simon Staho. She won the two top film awards in Denmark (the Bodil and Robert prize) for Best Actress for her role in the film, which was also selected for the main competition at the San Sebastián International Film Festival. The film received some criticism for the supposed abuse occurring to a baby actor during production.
In 2009, she played the role of Lisbeth Salander in the Swedish-produced film adaptation of Stieg Larsson's best-selling novel The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, for which she won the Guldbagge Award (Sweden's top film award), and was nominated for a BAFTA Award and European Film Award. She later appeared in the same role in the sequels The Girl Who Played with Fire, and The Girl Who Kicked the Hornets' Nest. All three films were subsequently recut as a six-part miniseries aired on Swedish television called Millennium, for which Rapace received a nomination for the International Emmy Award for Best Actress. The three film adaptations have earned over $200 million at the box office worldwide.
International success
Following the success of the Millennium series, Rapace started an international career. Her first English-speaking role was the character of Madame Simza Heron in Guy Ritchie's Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows, released in 2011.