She is taking a good look at the Maximum City from the room on the eighth floor of the St Regis hotel in Lower Parel. Better known to Indians as Lisbeth Salander of The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, The Girl Who Played with Fire and The Girl Who Kicked the Hornets' Nest, Noomi Rapace is in town to promote the new Netflix original, Bright, that releases on Friday . She has an adversarial role in the film, portraying the dark elf Leilah who wants possession of the magic wand that can potentially become a weapon of mass destruction. After a quick observation, about how we both are wearing the same shade of green, she settles down for a quick one-on-one. Excerpts:
What was it about the script that made you go for the role of Leilah?
It was a combination of the script, [director] David [Ayer] and the character. This kind of story in David’s hands is the perfect combination for me. I have been a great fan of David’s films for so long — Suicide Squad, Training Day. Harsh Times is one of my favourite movies. There is this real, authentic feeling, combined with this magic world of elves and orcs [in Bright ] that felt like a perfect match for me. If anyone else would have sent me the script, I would been like “how will this turn out”; it’s a risky world you know. Knowing David, I fell in love with the whole project.
I had a lot of conversations with David about Leilah. I wanted to make a passionate villain, someone who is fighting for something, who has a dream that matters to her. Everything matters too much [to her]. That’s something David kept in mind, kept telling me to remember her pain, suffering…
Pain and passion aside, there is physicality to the performance as well. Did it add up to the challenge?
There were a lot fight scenes, I was doing them all, training a lot. I had to find this “elvish” kind of flow to the moves, it never stopped. I did this film called What Happened to Monday. I played seven sisters so I had to find seven ways of fighting. Then you can make it very authentic and use the mistakes. When you are an elf there is no mistake. They are these creatures; it’s like watching a leopard or panther run. There’s a flow. They are like a wave or water. It was almost like a dance so I was rehearsing a lot for the fight scenes.
How is your villain distinct from the other villains we have known? What makes Leilah stand apart?
There is a lot going on in her. Behind the eyes and in her body; she takes everything in it. It’s like she is carrying thousands of years of knowledge and wisdom in her body. It’s almost like being thousand years old. She has this very strange energy. She is trying to create a better world. That’s her dream and she wants her sister [Tikka, played by Lucy Fry] to join her on that battlefield. So it’s the conflict between wanting to bring back her sister but also punishing her for leaving her. So it’s a sort of love story between the sisters as well.
Edgy is a word that often gets associated with your performances and characters. How do you respond to that bracket?
I like when it is complicated. How will I do it? These are the kind of characters you don’t understand straight away. It’s like something for me to go in and solve. It’s like a mystery. I love asking myself ‘can I understand this person’, ‘can I run it through my own blood system’, ‘can I become her’. I love that battle and the challenge. Even a character really far away from myself, I get obsessed with the challenge of understanding her. I want to marry this person, I want to meld in, I want to become one.
Powerful characters aside, women are coming out and speaking so much more, and powerfully, across the world…
Thank God! Finally!
I can sense that you are happy about it. You think this moment had to come, for women to assert themselves?
I watched this Indian movie Dangal. It’s interesting to see how the father is waiting to have a son. It’s so painful for me as a woman to watch his disappointment in the beginning of the film — “No, not another girl”. Then he turns around — “I am going to live my dream through my daughters”. Then he turns them into wrestlers. It is a really interesting story because it changes history. That you have an Indian female wrestler and how that’s very empowering.
For so many years women have been feeling that they are in the second position. Boys and men are the leaders. A woman is supposed to be a sidekick or pretty or the one who won’t make any noise. It’s totally time for a change. We should be equals.
I was raised in a very open way. I left my family when I was quite young. Since I was 15 I have always been very independent. I have made my own life. I have never waited for anyone else. I am very much my own engine. I also decided from an early age to not see myself as a victim, to take control of situations. What do I want to do? What is stopping me? Go out and fight. It’s something we women need to decide — to not see ourselves as victims. Sometimes we may have a hard battle to fight. Be loud, fight for your dreams; no one else will do it. Now it might get a little bit easier.
You have been peripatetic, lived in various parts of the world. Is that how you are — a bit of a nomad?
It’s a survival instinct. I was moving around as a child and needed to be good at adapting. As an actor, I am filming all over the world. I’m going to Australia so I have to make home there. Then you are in Romania. Or you are shooting in Canada. Home needs to be in your heart, not in a house.
It’s your first visit to India. Can you foresee yourself making a home here?
Yeah. My home is around my work. David and I, we were driving at four in the morning. It [Mumbai] looked like a film set. Everything looked so powerful and cinematic. He was like ‘I will totally come here and shoot with you’.
