But the young actress, 30, from a Bedford, New York, football family, who broke out in 2010 with her part in David Fincher’s The Social Network and was nominated for the Best Actress Oscar for her performance in Fincher’s Dragon Tattoo, has been one of our most compelling performers for a few years now. So what is behind this new, most recent surge, which will include forthcoming films by Terrence Malick and Jim Sheridan? How deep do those waters run? As Mara tells her pal Annie Clark, a.k.a. the rock goddess St. Vincent, she’s trying to find out, diving as deep as she can.

ANNIE CLARK: Hey, Roon-dog. It’s a pleasure. You’re going to regret every moment of this.

ROONEY MARA: No, I’m not!

CLARK: Don’t look at my notes. I prepped for this for a long time. I’ve been prepping for this for three years.

MARA: Which is when we first met.

CLARK: It was 2012. The first time I met you I was supposed to give you a guitar lesson.

MARA: What was that place called?

CLARK: Electric Lady Studios. Patti Smith was recently there doing a private show of Horses.

MARA: She was on the Terrence Malick movie I did. She shot, like, three days. I don’t know if she’ll end up in the cut, but her first day, she knocked on my trailer door—I hadn’t met her yet—and she introduced herself, because she was a huge fan of The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo. I was like [screams]. We had scenes together where she’s showing me stuff on the guitar, and then she does a show in Austin. They really wanted me to go out on stage and play with her, which I refused to do. But she put a chair on stage for me to sit and played a song to me. It was amazing. She was playing herself but giving my character all this advice. And it was actually really good advice, all about relationships.

CLARK: So in the movie she’s “Patti Smith.”

MARA: She’s playing herself. My character idolized her.

CLARK: Who is your character in the movie?

MARA: I have no idea.

CLARK: That must have been a challenge for you as an actor. [laughs]

MARA: The day I first met you, at Electric Lady, was my second guitar lesson. I wanted to learn on the acoustic, and I had no idea who you were. You probably had no idea who I was. And I had no idea what we were supposed to be doing.

CLARK: Me neither. And when I got there, the dude was like, “Oh, you didn’t bring your effects pedals.” I was like, “My pedals?” I’d walked from my East Village apartment with a limp because I’d broken my foot.