"I couldn't imagine my life without doing it."That's how Rooney Mara describes a realization she had midway through the lengthy audition process for, David Fincher's new adaptation of the hugely popular Stieg Larsson novel. She doesn't go so far as to attribute the casting to fate-- she worked far too hard in the auditions for that-- but it's hard to deny there's something amazing about the whip-smart, highly verbal girl from the beginning oftransforming herself into the dark, repressed and furious Lisbeth Salander in. Dyeing her hair black, bleaching her eyebrows and getting several piercings was only the beginning of the sacrifices made for, which shot for 150 days and had her living in Stockholm on her own for weeks before production began, in order to understand the character better.By all accounts every sacrifice paid off-- even the film's weaker reviews single Mara out, and though she says she's "shot myself in the leg" in finding equally worthwhile projects to do next, she's suddenly a very big deal when a year ago few people knew her name. I talked to Mara-- still with the black hair, though minus the many piercings-- over the weekend about how Salander's physical appearance bled through into her own life, the "character flaw" she shares with Lisbeth, the relationship she and David Fincher built together, the bruises she took home from set, and the one scene that Fincher, notorious for his many many takes, tried to get done as quickly as possible.Take a look below, and seein theaters everywhere this weekend.I didn't know. When I got that list [of what would be required in the role] from David after my first audition I hadn't read the books yet. I didn't want to read them until I knew I had a good shot at it, because I know myself and I can get very obsessed with things. I know that's how I work, and I knew it'd be that much more devastating to read the books and fall in love with this character and not be able to play it out. After I got the list I was like, if I don't get this, it's OK, because it's going to be really hard and I don't know that i want to go through that. Then after I read the books, as I knew I would be, I knew I had to do it. I couldn't imagine my life without doing it. I kept telling a friend, "I think I'm going to get this movie, because I actually can't imagine my future without it." It's just kind of a weird instinct, I just knew i was right.There's just a certain amount of attention you get as a girl, when you've got sort of long, pretty hair. I've never been someone to play up my sexuality with my wardrobe, I've always sort of played it down, but regardless as a girl there is a certain attention you get. When you have a weird haircut and no eyebrows and lots of piercings and you're dressing like a boy, people don't look at you, and I found it to be so freeing. To just roll out of bed in the morning and not worry about what you look like.Yeah, no one catcalls you when you look like I did.That doesn't happen on a David Fincher set. And people don't do that to me because they learn very quickly that I hate that. They always have an airport greeter for me when you're doing something for Sony, and all the airport greeters have learned "Alright, you're OK, we're going to leave you alone now." I don't do well with a handler, and certainly not when I'm in character. People knew to stay away from me.It's kind of just a part of me. It was certainly heightened when I was in character. It's quite clear in body language. Sometimes you get a person who doesn't read body language very well. But there's none of that. Shooting a Fincher film is very much like shooting an independent film, without stressing about getting your shots in. You have an endless amount of time, but it's an independent film in the fact that there are no producers on set, there's no bells and whistles. He likes everything as contained as possible. The money is on the screen.You just know. You're always giving it your best, but you know that you have time to breathe, so it doesn't have that sort of panicked feeling, that I have four shots at this. You get to really play. The only scene where there was less of that, when we went in saying we've got to get this right, was not even the rape scene, but the scene leading up to the rape, when he chokes me out. That was really, really fucking hard. David came up to us before that and said "I'm going to try and do this six times." We did it much more than six times, but we all went in knowing there was a limited amount of takes we could get at that.Yeah, after that first day of doing the choke-out part, I went home, and I can't remember who was there, but they thought I was in makeup. They thought I had the post-rape makeup on. I was really getting choked out. You can't really fake that-- we weren't faking that. So certainly on that scene we went into it with 100% on every take, and we tried to get it over with as fast as possible.Yeah, she's meant to look like a little 14-year-old boy. Her look to us was always meant to repel. It's alway meant to be a means to get the kind of response that I got, people don't pay attention to you, they don't have expectations of you, they just ignore you. We certainly didn't want her to be sexy or attractive in any way. I think by the end of the film she is beautiful. I think a lot of people before they see the movie think "God, she's so ugly, why would they make her so ugly." I think those people will leave the film thinking she's beautiful.It's not the reaction we wanted, but it's the reaction we knew would happen. It's the reason David always talks aboutIf you just saw E.T. before the movie you'd think "That's an ugly little creature." By the end of the movie you're like "He's so cute!" And that's sort of what happens with Salander. By the end of it she's beautiful in her own little way.