Rooney Mara Almost Quit Acting After Her Experience Making A NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET
Rooney Mara is quite a talented actress, and I especially enjoyed her in films such as The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo and Nightmare Alley. Before she took on the roles in those films, though, she starred in a remake of A Nightmare on Elm Street, and it was not the best experience for her. In fact, the 2010 movie made her almost quit acting.
The actress didn't explicitly say what it was about making the movie that she found so terrible, but it led her on a path to making films that she felt she had to make, projects that she was passionate about. She told LaunchLeft:
"A few years before [The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo], I had done a Nightmare on Elm Street remake, which was not a good experience. I have to be careful with what I say and how I talk about it. It wasn't the best experience making it and I kind of got to this place, that I still live in, that I don't want to act unless I'm doing stuff that I feel like I have to do. So after making that film, I kind of decided, 'Okay, I'm just not going to act anymore unless it's something that I feel that way about.'"
I wonder what happened during the production that was so awful for her. But, in the end, it turned out to be an awful remake and it was a forgettable and pointless film.
It was after that movie, though, that she jumped on board David Fincher's The Social Network in a small role. It’s that movie that paved the way for taking for the films she ended up starring in since and ended up taking the lead role in Fincher’s The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo. When talking about working with Fincher, she said:
"I worked on it for a year straight. David really took me under his wing. He became my mentor in a lot of ways. He took such great care to make sure that I knew that I had a voice and that my opinion meant something. He constantly was empowering me, which I think really affected the rest of my choices thereafter."
Mara’s most recent project is the film Women Talking, about the women of an isolated religious community who grapple with reconciling a brutal reality with their faith.