Stieg Larsson Trilogy

Noomi Rapace as Lisbeth Salander

Noomi Rapace (née Norén, born 28 December, 1979 in Hudiksvall) is a Swedish actress. Her father was Rogelio Durán, a Spanish cantaor (Flamenco singer) from Badajoz.

Noomi spent her childhood in Jarna and then in Flúðir, Iceland. She lived with her mother and stepfather at Flúðir when she was 5-8 years old and at the age of seven, she was given a non-speaking part in the film Í skugga hrafnsins by Hrafn Gunnlaugsson. In 1996, she made her TV debut playing the part of Lucinda Gonzales in the TV series Tre kronor.

She is married to the actor Ola Rapace, they have a son.

A huge list of young female actors were considered as were unknown and inexperienced actresses as the search for Lisbeth took to the streets of Stockholm. Ultimately, what they were looking for was someone with originality. Noomi's leading role in the feature film Daisy Diamond drew the attention of the production team. This was a very brave role and it was decided that with her skills and mental strength she would be able to do miracles in the role as Lisbeth with the right director.

Noomi, a self-taught actress having never been to drama school, took to the role instantly. She undertook a radial change in her appearance for starters - she cut her hair, took boxing lessons to change her body into a ball of muscle, got piercings in her eyebrow, lip, ears and nose. She even got her motorbike license! Everything is for real with Noomi, except for the huge tattoo which was imported from America!

Michael Nyqvist as Mikael Blomkvist

Michael Nyqvist (born November 8, 1960 in Stockholm) is a Swedish actor. Educated at the School of Drama in Malmo, he had his breakthrough as police officer Banck in the first series of Beck movies made in 1997. As a baby, he was adopted from an orphanage and his biological father is Italian. At 17 he spent a year as an exchange student in Omaha, Nebraska in the United States. This is where he, as a senior in high school, took his first acting classes - playing amongst other things a small part in a version of the drama Death of a Salesman by Arthur Miller.

When he returned to Sweden he was accepted at Ballet School but after one year gave it up. An ex girlfriend advised him to try theatre instead and at the age of 19 he was accepted to the Swedish Academic School of Drama.

After graduating Michael worked mainly with theatre but also landed smaller parts in several different film productions. His first big breakthrough came in 2000 with the film Together directed by Lukas Moodysson. The movie reached great international success. After that he has played leading parts in award winning movies such as Grabben i Graven Bredvid directed by Kjell Sundvall, As It Is in Heaven, directed by Kay Pollak and awarded in his most recently Suddenly directed by Johan Brisinger. Today he is one of Sweden's most beloved actors.

Nyqvist won the Guldbagge Award for best male actor in 2003.

Information via Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Nyqvist )