AllMovie

Swedish actress Noomi Rapace was born into a show business family, with a mother involved in acting and a father who worked as a flamenco singer. By the age of seven, Rapace was making minor appearances in movies and TV shows in her adoptive home of Iceland, where she moved at age five with her mother and stepfather. At 15, the burgeoning performer returned to Sweden and enrolled in Stockholm Theatre School, and just a few years later, she was scoring paid roles on camera. She would spend the '90s and 2000s earning numerous accolades both on-stage and in film in Europe, though she would become an international sensation when she was cast as iconic character Lisbeth Salander in the big-screen adaptation of The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo, the first in a popular series of Swedish books. The film transcended borders and became a hit in the U.S., as well, and she would reprise the role for two sequels. By 2011, Rapace was taking her talent directly to English-speaking audiences, appearing in Guy Ritchie's Sherlock Holmes 2, and following that up the next year as the lead in Ridley Scott's Alien prequel Prometheus.