DEAD MAN DOWN marks the Swedish actress’ fourth English language film since catapulting into the international spotlight with her portrayal as Lisbeth Salander in the original Girl with the Dragon Tattoo series. In Dead Man Down, Noomi tackles the role of Beatrice who sports nasty looking scars on the right side of her face as a result of a terrible car accident inflicted by a drunk driver. Her once beautiful character is psychologically damaged. She’s become a figure of ridicule and is called “the monster” by the neighborhood children. Her blood boils with anger towards the drunk driver who essentially raped her of the life she was supposed to have. This leads her to Victor (Colin Farell) whom she entrusts to kill the man who did this to her in hopes of quenching her thirst for vengeance.
Nonetheless, it’s Hollywood, so of course Noomi still manages to look fairly sexy even with the disfigured face, but that wasn’t the case when she stepped off set during the shooting of DEAD MAN DOWN.
At a recent press event for the film, Cinemovie sat down with Noomi to discuss her experience taking on the dark and damaged Beatrice. Noomi wanted to develop an emotional understanding of the character and it drove her to reflect on the perception of beauty within society.
“For women all over the world it’s so important to be beautiful. People pay more attention to you if you look a certain way. People listen to you more. You can gain a lot of things and win a lot of things if you have a face that is beautiful.”1Noomi put this theory to the test when she went out for coffee in Philadelphia with the prosthetic facial scars. She noticed that people couldn’t stop staring at her and she began to understand how it felt to look that way. She also mentioned that she went through a similar experience during prep for The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo.
“For Lisbeth, I shaved both sides, had piercings, and dyed my hair black. I had to go to the bank and do something and they were so rude to me. I asked myself why they were ignoring me. What’s going on? Then I realized they saw this punk girl. People are so judgmental.”
Noomi stars opposite Colin Farell and he had nothing but praise and admiration for the way she approached the film. The pair had only a few days in Los Angeles to rehearse and build chemistry before they began shooting. Colin told us that while filming in Philly, he and Noomi had adjacent hotel rooms with a shared balcony. At around 10 pm they’d smoke a cigarette, have some coffee, and discuss the days work ahead of them.“She was so brilliant, present, and imaginative. She really cares about it a lot. You know it keeps her up at night. That translates into a complete integral understanding of the character. I feel like I had a great dancing partner.”As an actor, according to Colin, you have to treat the fiction as a reality. “You're in good shape, if you begin to dream the character.” On set, he wasn’t too pleased when Noomi achieved those dreams before he did.
"Noomi started having earlier dreams than I did, and I told her 'Ahh...character dreams, you bitch. You're there already...F*ck!'"Explosive, emotional, and darkly funny; DEAD MAN DOWN hits theaters March 7th.
