In line with
the family’s tradition of philanthropy, she has always shown interest in charity work.

It’s safe to say that Lisbeth Salander, the tattooed, pierced, mohawked, bisexual hacker who helps an investigative journalist solve a series of bizarre murders in the late Stieg Larsson’s bestselling Millennium mysteries, is the most compelling fictional heroine of the...well, millennium, at least so far. Psychically damaged by a troubled upbringing that involved repeated sexual abuse from her guardian, Lisbeth has a chip on her shoulder as big as the world, and like any well-written anti-hero she channels her bitterness, using it to bolster her resolve in trying to reach some kind of truth. Though the Millennium books have already been made into an internationally successful trilogy of films produced in Sweden, where the novels are set, Hollywood decided the world (read: America) could use an English-language version, and David Fincher, whose Seven remains the template for the sort of serial killer tradition that Millennium ably continues, was hired to direct the first installment, The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo. Daniel Craig agreed to play Mikael Blomkvist, the anguished reporter.

That was easy compared to casting Lisbeth since the most indelible feature of the Swedish film trilogy was Noomi Rapace, the actress who played her. To people who saw the trilogy no one could replace Rapace, and it was rumored for a while that the producers of the new series would ask her to reprise the role. When that idea was dropped the producers started auditioning actresses, and several stars, including Natalie Portman, Scarlett Johansson, and Jennifer Lawrence, showed keen interest in the role. But Fincher, perhaps understanding how difficult it would be to make audiences forget about Rapace, thought the only way to approach the problem would be to use an actress with no baggage, an unknown. He convinced Scott Rudin, the producer, to use Rooney Mara, whose experience as a leading actor was limited to one movie, the 2009 remake of the horror classic Nightmare on Elm Street.

However, it was a smaller but much more iconic role that prompted Fincher to use her. Mara played Erica Albright, the girl who so unceremoniously dumps Mark Zuckerberg before the opening credits of The Social Network and thus inadvertently spurs the Harvard undergraduate to create Facebook out of a sense of wounded pride. Though Mara only appeared in that scene and an even briefer one later in the movie, the impression she makes is incalculable, mainly because of one line of dialogue that has already gone down in the annals of film: “You are probably going to be a very successful computer person, but you’re going to go through life thinking that girls don’t like you because you’re a nerd. And I want you to know, from the bottom of my heart, that that won’t be true. It’ll be because you’re an asshole.”

Erica Albright isn’t an iconoclast like Lisbeth Salander, but in that rarefied world outlined by The Social Network she seems like the only person with a moral compass, and while Lisbeth by inclination prefers living outside society, she is still motivated by a morality she doesn’t really understand until she’s forced to confront it by the events she uncovers as a computer hacker.

In real life, Patricia Rooney Mara has more in common with Erica than with Lisbeth. She was born and raised in upper crust Westchester County, New York, her father an executive of the New York Giants football team, which was founded by her paternal great-grandfather, Tim Mara. Her maternal great-grandfather, Art Rooney, founded the Pittsburgh Steelers football franchise, so you could say she’s a member of what would pass for royalty in America.

Mara didn’t display any overt interest in show business in her youth. In line with the family’s tradition of philanthropy, she has always shown more interest in charity work, and has even established her own foundation that supports empowerment programs for children and families in Nairobi, Kenya. After graduating from high school in 2003 she traveled the world and then attended George Washington University for a year before transferring to New York University, where she studied psychology and international social policy. It was there that she became interested in acting.

As it happens, Mara’s older sister, Kate, had been a professional actress in New York for several years. Though she once told a reporter that as a child she never considered acting “an honorable profession,” she was secretly interested. The reason she didn’t pursue it was “I was always afraid that I might fail.” Then she acted in a few student films at NYU and tagged along with her sister as an extra for films. When she was 19 she started going to auditions.
Her first speaking part was in 2006 in the TV series Law & Order: Special Victims Unit as a girl who bullies overweight children. For the next three years she took supporting roles in a number of indie films and TV series, usually playing very young women with a lot of sexual experience. Two of these movies, Dare and The Winning Season, premiered at the 2009 Sundance Film Festival, and as a result Filmmaker magazine named her one of the 25 New Faces of Independent Film for that year. This PR boost obviously helped her get the lead part in Nightmare, though she was frank about her disappointment with the experience, telling Vogue that making the movie was so disheartening that she questioned whether or not she wanted to continue with her acting career.

Lisbeth Salander is exactly the kind of role that can make such a career, and perhaps as a show of her investment in the character Mara underwent multiple body piercings to make Lisbeth her own creation—four in each ear, one in her brow, and one in her right nipple (the nose and lip piercings in the film are fake). Moreover, she learned how to skateboard and kick-box. If the movie is successful, she’ll reprise the role in the next two parts, but in the meantime she’s working with director Terrence Malick on the film Lawless alongside Ryan Gosling, Christian Bale, and Cate Blanchett. But as she told a newspaper, her charity work comes first. “I need to do both,” she said. “I can’t do just acting.” But she still watches football, too. “It’s the glue that holds our family together.