Noomi Rapace is currently promoting Stockholm, or The Captor. The film’s name changes depending on where you are – it’s Stockholm in America, and I think it’s The Captor in Britain and maybe other European countries. It’s the film about the infamous bank robbery and hostage situation in a Stockholm bank in 1973, from which we get the term “Stockholm Syndrome,” where the people being held captive quickly began to identify with their captors rather than the Swedish police who were trying to rescue them. Noomi is one of the captive bank people and Ethan Hawke is the main bank heister. It looks like an interesting film. To promote the film, Noomi chatted with The Guardian about feminism, female characters and what Stieg Larsson would think of the world today. Noomi starred in the film adaptations of Larsson’s Millennium trilogy books, where she was the first (and best) Lisbeth Salander.

On what the late Stieg Larsson would think of the world today: “Stieg would be so upset today. He would go ballistic about everything that is going on. I feel I know that.” Rapace told the Observer that if the novelist were alive, she believes he would be campaigning against “horrible” international events and fresh threats to feminism, so she feels a responsibility to speak out: “He believed in helping women and showing how they are really strong. If he knew about the new abortion laws in the United States he would be angry. He was a man who stood against all that.”

She was working in New Orleans when the abortion laws were introduced: “I was so upset to be in the city. It is so backwards and so horrible.”

Fighting sexism: “Things are slowly changing, but I have been fighting this structure, the way actresses are sexualised, since I started acting, not just after #MeToo. And not just on screen, but in the industry, too. I’ve been trying to avoid becoming a ‘cute object’. I fight it every day. I want to be a mirror of the world on screen instead.”

Women need to take control of their own lives: “We can’t wait for things to happen, we need our own oxygen. I feel it is also important not to see yourself as a victim. You give away power when you do that.”

On Stockholm Syndrome: “It is a condition that is universal. It happens all around us. I have a girlfriend who, a while ago, stayed with a man who was mistreating her. It was like a harmful dose of Stockholm syndrome. It happens in the wider world, too, when someone in power is convincing or charming, although not good for you. We often lose ourselves a little bit, but we should listen to who we really are.”

Her future goals: “I want to do more work about women. Close, the last film I made with my friend, the director Vicky Jewson, was about a woman bodyguard. We are working on a second project together now. It is set in the 1970s again, an era I love, and it is about Sylvia Raphael, the Mossad agent involved in the Lillehammer affair.” (This was the murder by Israeli agents of a Moroccan waiter in Norway they mistook for a terrorist leader.)

She now feels more English than Swedish, having lived in London for years. “I love this country. There is a lot of weird stuff happening in the world, but we need to remember we are all one tribe really and that we should have each other’s backs. If we don’t help people, it is going to come back on us. London is an intelligent city. I feel way more at home here. I even cry when I fly back in over London. There is room for everything in this city. It is a divine mix – a mini version of the rest of the world. If it can work here, it can work anywhere.”

[From The Guardian]

It’s nice that she can see the good of London, the multiculturalism, the diversity, the multifaith society living in harmony, but hasn’t Brexit become an affront to that? Again, I’m not saying that’s ON Noomi, but she’s like “New Orleans is trash” because Louisiana misogynists are banning abortion but she won’t say “London is trash” when the UK is shooting itself in the multicultural foot with Brexit? I also find it interesting that she’s talking about Stieg Larsson’s legacy and what he would think about everything that’s happening today – Larsson died under mysterious circumstances in 2004, and yes – ALL of our 2004-selves would sh-t a brick if we saw what was coming in 2019.

Photos courtesy of WENN.