Noomi Rapace

Biography of Noomi Rapace

Noomi Rapace was born on December 28, 1979 in Hudiksvall, Sweden.

She is the daughter of the Swedish actress Nina Norén and Rogelio Durán, a flamenco singer from Badajoz (Spain), whose stage name was Rogelio Dabargos and whom she did not meet until she was fifteen.

At the age of five, she moved from her native Sweden to Flúðir in Iceland, her mother marrying an Icelander. She has two stepsisters.

Two years later, she returned to Sweden and studied at a Waldorf education school.

She later enrolled in a theater school in Stockholm.

From 1998 to 1999 she studied at the Skara Skolscen acting school.

In addition to Swedish, she is fluent in Icelandic, Danish, Norwegian and English.

At the age of seven, she made her film debut with a small role in the Icelandic film In the Shadow of the Raven.

In 2007 for her portrayal of a troubled teenage mother in the Danish film Daisy Diamond, she was awarded two of Denmark's highest film awards (Bodil and Robert Award) for Best Actress.

During 2009 she starred as Lisbeth Salander in the Swedish film adaptation of Stieg Larsson's novel The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, a role for which she won a Guldbagge Award and was nominated for a BAFTA. She reprized the role again in the other two films in the trilogy: The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo, The Girl Who Played with Fire, and The Girl Who Kicked the Hornets' Nest.

She subsequently worked with British director Guy Ritchie on Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows, released in 2011, and with Ridley Scott on Prometheus (2012), playing the lead role of scientist Elizabeth Shaw.

She starred in the feature film Passion (2013), directed by Brian De Palma, and in the same year she appeared in the thriller Dead Man Down, alongside Isabelle Huppert and Colin Farrell.

In 2015, she played Raisa Demidova in Child 44, in which she worked with Tom Hardy and Gary Oldman.

She was part of the cast of Unlocked (2016), Bright (2017), Stockholm (2018), Angel of Mine (2019), Here Are the Young Men (2020), Lamb (2021), You Won't Be Alone and The Price , among other.

She first appeared on television in 1996, in the Tre kronor series, which was followed by Pusselbitar (2001), Tusenbröder (2003) and Labyrint (2007-2008).

In 2010, the three films in the The Girl series were adapted into a six-episode miniseries broadcast on Swedish television called Millennium, for which she received an International Emmy Award nomination for Best Actress.

In 2001 she married Swedish actor Ola Norell (born Pär Ola Norell). After the link they decided to use the surname Rapace (bird of prey). They were the parents of a son, Lev, born in 2003. They divorced in 2011.