Writer/director Niels Arden Oplev made a name for himself in Denmark with such films as Portland and The Eagle, but it was his version of The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo which really catapulted him to international success. The success of his adaptation of the infinitely popular Stieg Larsson novel has now led him to make his first English language movie in Dead Man Down.
The revenge thriller reunites him with his Dragon Tattoo star Noomi Rapace and co-stars Colin Farrell and Terrence Howars. Niels was at the Dead Man Down press conference that was recently held at the Four Seasons Hotel in Beverly Hills, California. While there he discussed the making of the movie, his take on violence in the media, why he chose Farrell and Rapace to star and much more.
Check it out below.
We Got This Covered: Can you tell us what made you choose Colin Farrell and Noomi Rapace to star in this movie?
Niels Arden Oplev: When I heard that Colin was interested in the story I got really excited about it because I see him as a character actor and an action hero. There’s actually some wrong synopsis of the story somewhere on the Internet where it says that Victor (the character Colin plays) is a professional killer, and he’s not a professional killer but really an engineer that has a background in military as a lot of young men have. He comes to New York with his family for a good life and prosperity, and he falls into this terrible tragedy and he makes this decision to transform himself into something that becomes like a street warrior who is capable of really taking people down like an action hero. So in order to have credibility all the way and having all this emotional depth in these scenes where there is no action, I thought he could be absolutely fabulous for that.
Of course, Noomi I know really well. She’s like a sister to me and we worked very successfully together. I know of the strengths that she has and I was fascinated with the thought of starting her out so far away from Lisbeth Salander as you can possibly get by looking like a doll with her hair and makeup and fragile and beautifully dressed to the dime and then flip-flop into this fury. I just thought it would be so cool to work with her on the character, and I think that the eccentric nature of Beatrice has made her fragile but still a strong female character. I was also fascinated in taking these two great actors and seeing how many sparks would fly between these two when you let them loose. It was not a difficult choice.
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