The girl with the most coveted role

DIRECTOR David Fincher always knew that Rooney Mara, the star of the eagerly-anticipated English-language version of The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, was a special talent.

He’s known this ever since he cast the young actress in his 2010 movie The Social Network. “Finding somebody who can go toe to toe with Jesse Eisenberg, with a script by Aaron Sorkin, is not an easy thing to do,” he says.

In The Social Network, however, Mara did just that, more than matching Eisenberg’s quick-fire patois, line for line, in a sparkling dialogue sequence. “So when we were casting for The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo,” continues Fincher, “just from that one small scene in The Social Network, I thought that Rooney could be just right.”