After dedication and preparation for her audition, Rooney Mara scored the lead role of the troubled character, Lisbeth Salander. In order to portray her character correctly, Mara dyed her hair black, bleached her eyebrows and got several piercings. She was even required to live in Stockholm for several weeks by herself prior to shooting to be able to connect with her character better.
There is a scene in the movie in which Mara's character encounters a brutal rape. In a shower scene in the movie you can see bruises all over her body. In an interview with Mara, she reveals that those bruises were real! There is a choking scene that leads up to the rape scene and in order to make it look as real as possible, some physical aggression was required. After several takes of this scene, Mara returned to her trailer. She recalls colleagues thinking that she had post-rape makeup on, but the bruises on Mara's body were indeed real showing how much of herself she put in this movie to make it so spectacular.
