Rapace says her character is 'very much her own,' despite sharing similarities to Sigourney Weaver's Ripley.

Despite spin that "Prometheus," Ridley Scott's upcoming sci-fi flick that returns the director to his "Alien" roots, is not a prequel to the franchise he helped launch in 1979, some of the stars of the new film apparently beg to differ. Actor Michael Fassbender told us last month that the new movie shares "a definite connecting vein" with the previous films.

And now "Prometheus" co-star Noomi Rapace has seconded that assessment. When MTV News recently asked the Swedish actress about the definitive "Alien" connection, she answered, simply, "Yeah, yeah."

Yet Rapace emphasized that her character, a scientist named Elizabeth Shaw, is not some knock off of Sigourney Weaver's Ripley — the take-no-crap hero of the original "Alien" movies.

"She's definitely her own," Rapace said of Shaw. "She's a scientist and she's very bright and she's a believer. They have some similarities, but she's very much her own. I don't think people will compare [her] so much to Ripley when they see her. Ripley was a hero for me."

MTV News spoke with Rapace in January on the set of "Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows," a film that will mark a sort of Hollywood coming-out party for the star of the Swedish-language "Girl With the Dragon Tattoo" films. After finishing up work on "Sherlock," Rapace was anticipating beginning "Prometheus" in March for a shoot that could run into the early fall, ahead of a March 9, 2012, theatrical release. Before then, however, she and Scott have work to do in simply developing the character of Shaw.

"I have many ideas and he has many ideas, and now we try to find her," the actress told us. "I will step into her shoes in March and be here for six months, so it's quite a long shoot."

Check out everything we've got on "Prometheus."

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