Los Angeles Times

Early in the movie “The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo,” central character Lisbeth Salander is bound and raped by her legal guardian. It’s a harrowing scene from the first tale in novelist Stieg Larsson’s so-called Millennium Trilogy that was almost as difficult to film as it is to watch.

Peter Andersson, the actor cast as the guardian, couldn’t bring himself to manhandle Salander, who is played in all three of the crime-story film adaptations by Noomi Rapace. The petite Swedish actress, 30, kept encouraging Andersson to dispense with any gentle stagecraft, worried that audiences would think the impending sexual violence wasn’t authentic. “Damn it, just hit me!” Rapace finally said.

Director Niels Arden Oplev watched in amazement. “Noomi is the kind of actor,” he says, “who would rather get punched for real.”

Larsson’s three books are global blockbusters, and the first film in the Swedish-language trilogy (which opened in Kansas City in April) has grossed more than $100 million around the world.