With a September shoot date planned, David Fincher is certainly starting to fill the cast of his English-language version of The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo. Daniel Craig and Rooney Mara are now installed in the lead roles, with Robin Wright and Stellan Skarsgard in support, and now it appear that Max Von Sydow is about to join them.
Variety reports that the 81-year-old actor is in talks to play Henrik Vanger, the character who sets the plot in motion by hiring disgraced, jail-bound journalist Mikael Blomkvist (Craig) to look into the 40-year-old possible murder of his 16-year-old niece, which takes Blomkvist and damaged computer hacker Lisbeth Salander (Mara) into the world of the dysfunctional, island-bound Vanger family.
Von Sydow’s involvement isn’t exactly a shock, as like the Stieg Larsson book the movie is based on, he’s Swedish, and it’s a role that almost seems written for the Exorcist actor to play. Indeed it would have been stranger if Fincher has hired anybody else.