“I don’t want to play the female lead”: Sherlock Holmes Star Noomi Rapace is Fed Up of Playing “Likable” Women in Movies
Noomi Rapace wants to play roles written for men in Hollywood. She is frankly fed up with playing the “likable” woman character for ages and wants to venture into new waters.
In Hollywood, gender-swapping roles are a pretty common occurrence. Be it Sir Ridley Scott’s famous sci-fi classic Aliens, where the role of Elen Ripley was actually written for a man, or Philip Noyce’s Salt, where Angelina Jolie’s legendary action character was actually intended for a man, especially Tom Cruise, the examples are numerous.
The most recent example of this would be the rumor of Anya Taylor-Joy playing Silver Surfer in the MCU’s Fantastic Four reboot, a character that is male-identifying in the comics. While Taylor-Joy’s performance and reception are yet to be seen, time and time again in Hollywood, female actresses have proved that they are equally capable of carrying a role written for a man, if not more.
So, it is no wonder that Noomi Rapace wants to test out new horizons and establish herself as an actor by playing roles that are more challenging than playing a “likable” woman in movies.
What did Noomi Rapace say about playing the female lead in a movie?
Actress Noomi Rapace needs no introduction. She has proved her caliber in movies such as Prometheus, Alien: Covenant, the country version of the Millennium franchise, and most famously the Sherlock Holmes movie, where she played Madam Simza Heron opposite Robert Downey Jr and managed to keep the limelight on her whenever she was on screen despite being in a star-studded cast.
While talking about her 2022 film, Black Crab, which is an adaptation of a Scandinavian novel, Noomi Rapace openly talks to Tudum, a Netflix website, about how she prefers playing more bold and pushing characters as opposed to weak, fragile, and “likable” characters.
“I can read a script and be like, ‘I don’t want to play the female lead, but what about the male lead? I like that character more. For so many years, the female roles were cute and pretty. they’re attractive and they’re likable. They’re so damn likable. I’m like ‘f**k likable.’”
According to sources, director Adam Berg rewrote the part to fit Noomi Rapace’s vision for her character. However, this is not the first time Netflix has adjusted a role to fit her.
“[A gender switch] happened on What Happened to Monday, the first film I did for Netflix where it was [originally about] seven brothers, and, when I came onboard, it was [changed] to seven sisters. And now, with Black Crab, I think Adam knew that he wanted me to bring Caroline Edh to life.”
She also thinks it is important to tell stories about “how far can you get with your willpower.” However, the process was far from easy. While shooting Black Crab, she had an early injury that caused the production to be paused. When she returned to the sets, she admitted to being “scared” and feeling “small” because of it, as if she had lost all her training. She opened up and said:
“I’ve always thought I was strong on my own and that I can survive anything [and that] I don’t need anybody else. Then, in the midst of filming, I needed people. And it was OK. And it was OK for me to ask for help. It was OK for me to say, ‘You know what? I can’t do this stunt. My stunt double needs to do it because I don’t have the balance now.’”
She is indeed an inspiration in Hollywood for many.
Noomi Rapace calls for an “equal film industry”
This is not the first time Noomi Rapace has expressed her hopes for a more feminist and equal industry in Hollywood. In a 2017 interview with Vogue for her Netflix movie What Happened To Monday, she spoke up against abuse of power in Hollywood. It was the same year Harvey Weinstein got called out by multiple women, which kicked off the #MeToo movement. So, Noomi Rapace’s following comment on Vogue created a very powerful statement:
“I think, you can see it in most industries, it’s a structure that if someone sits on too much power, you start using it. You can see it in the fashion industry, in the music industry and even politics. It’s a bit like corruption, only this is emotional corruption and physical corruption. It’s good that it’s starting to change and makes it harder for people to abuse and use their positions.
She continued:
“But it’s a very old structure. If you look back, the Hitchcock stories were horrendous but now it’s starting to come out. All the female filmmakers, producers, writers and actresses are questioning why should we live like this? It’s time for an equal film industry.”
Noomi Rapace was also pretty vocal about lending her support to the Black Dress movement at the Golden Globes. According to her, if someone gets mistreated and one witnesses it, one speaks up. It is as simple as that.
The 2022 movie Black Crab is available to enjoy on Netflix for the audience.
