I worked with Angelina Jolie 13 years ago before she was really famous, and Mara reminded me of the same thing.” — Samuel Bayer, director of “A Nightmare on Elm Street,” pictured here with Rooney Mara (©Warner Bros/courtesy Everett Co)
She’s a virtual unknown, but she landed the role of the decade.
Rooney Mara, 25, will play the part coveted by every A-list actress in Hollywood: the punk, bisexual hacker named Lisbeth Salander in the David Fincher-directed remake of Swedish thriller “The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo.”
And speaking of tattoos, some are comparing her to another once-unknown young beauty. “I worked with Angelina Jolie 13 years ago, before she was famous, and Mara reminded me of the same thing,” says director Samuel Bayer, who directed Mara in her only major role thus far, in last April’s “A Nightmare on Elm Street.”
What’s most astonishing, though, is the list of names she reportedly beat out: Scarlett Johansson, Natalie Portman, Ellen Page and Carey Mulligan among them.