Rooney Mara covers the January issue of Elle Magazine (US). She promoting Carol, which has already scored Rooney a Best Actress award at the Cannes Film Festival. Most critics are short-listing her for across-the-board nominations too, although there’s still some debate about whether she’ll be included on Supporting or Lead Actress lists. We’ll see! I was pleased to read this Elle Magazine piece, just because it feels like Rooney hasn’t been hustling that much so far, and I always “enjoy” her interviews. Rooney is sort of terrible, in a funny way. While she was David Fincher’s muse, she spent months bad-mouthing her early jobs (in Law & Order: SVU and Nightmare on Elm Street), and she has a funny habit of describing herself as “aloof” and “vulnerable.” Whereas I would describe her as a “pill” and “try-hard.” Anyway, here are some highlights from her Elle interview.

The pressure of selling a movie: “As an actor, you can’t just be in the film. You’re also in charge of selling it, and so you have to be very political and make sure to not say the wrong things. It’s exhausting. A lot of pressure is put on the people who were hired to make – not even to make, to be a part of making – the thing.”

Her football family (she’s the granddaughter of Pittsburgh Steelers founder and the daughter of the NY Giants founder): She insists her upbringing was “privileged” but ordinary, “People think that I grew up going to Barneys for my back-to-school clothes. I went to the Gap. We lived in a nice house on a cul-de-sac, but it wasn’t a mansion. We didn’t have a butler or a maid.”

Whether she follows football: “I’m so not keyed into it” but says she finds it “meaningful” when one of the teams is doing well “because it means so much to the whole family.”

What she felt when David Fincher joked about her trust fund: “He was being ironic. After that article came out, I was like ‘F—k you, David. I wish I had my g-ddamned trust fund.’”

Whether she regrets playing Tiger Lily in Pan: “In hindsight, I wish I hadn’t put myself in that position.”

Oscar hopes: “Getting nominated means something, you will get better parts, and I really do want people to see the film. But I don’t feel like it’s something I’m desperate for. I would forgo it all to keep my integrity.”

She’s so aloof: “I’ve always been a very sensitive person and people tell me that if I’m in a certain mood and I go into a room, my mood will permeate the room. It’s not on purpose – I’d rather be invisible in those moments – but I’m really bad at faking how I feel. Like, my emotions kind of live all over my body at all times, and there’s not a good way for me to hide it. Because I’m highly empathetic, it’s easy for me put myself in the character’s shoes.”

She’s so hardcore: “People don’t really want me to be honest. People want me – people want girls – to be grateful, gracious, poised. Not real. I watch interviews from the 1970s, of Patti Smith or John Cassavetes, and everyone’s smoking, drinking, totally misbehaving, but they’re being completely authentic, and I’m so jealous because that would never happen today. There’s always a pre-interview, so you know what jokes you have to hit, and there’s nothing genuine about it. And I hate that. I hate being a phony. I hate having to censor myself.”

[From Elle Magazine, print edition]

Much aloof. So empathy. I would argue that Rooney comes across as slightly bratty at times because her family background really was privileged, despite what she claims, and she’s used to getting her way about everything. While she says she didn’t have a “maid or butler,” nor did she live in a “mansion,” with the kind of family money her parents had/have, I’m guessing the house was big and there were some “support staff” around. The trust-fund issue is interesting too. I wonder…

Photos courtesy of WENN, cover courtesy of ELLE.