"Everybody knows me. If I was sitting like this," she says, glancing around the dimly lighted lobby of the Chateau Marmont, in Hollywood, "people would be looking and somebody would come and ask for an autograph and people would probably be listening to us and what we're saying. I can't really just go out in Stockholm. I have to have a car waiting. I can't take the bus. It's not possible anymore."
That Rapace might soon lose her anonymity in the United States - where her star is rapidly rising after her turn in the movie adaptations of novelist Stieg Larsson's Millennium Trilogy - is, not surprisingly, a prospect she finds somewhat terrifying.
But as the popular Swedish-language franchise's final film, The Girl Who Kicked the Hornets' Nest, hits theatres, the 30-year-old actress is facing a new reality.
This year alone, she's visited Hollywood three times, in August doing the rounds while meeting studio executives and A-list directors such as Ridley Scott (her name has been mentioned as a possible star of the new Alien prequel Fox has in development).
And she's been asked by distributor Music Box Films if she'd be prepared to be at the centre of an awards campaign, on the chance it decides to promote her for lead actress honours for her role in the trilogy as hard-edged computer hacker Lisbeth Salander.
"I've said, 'I can talk about the film,' of course," Rapace says. "But I don't want to - I can't really see myself trying to convince people to nominate me. Should I be standing there and say I'm good? Like, no, I can't do that. I don't consider myself - I don't look at myself in that way."
In Hollywood, the way that people seem to look at her - at least initially - is as a tough, somewhat manly actress primed to take on action roles. But Rapace, who in person looks considerably more feminine than her famous screen counterpart, is delighted to upend those sorts of expectations.
"I think people expect me to be a punk, aggressive, angry person with a lot of black make-up and really not be able to communicate and all that," said Rapace, referring to Salander's trademark characteristics.
"And a lot of people actually called my managers and my agents and said, 'She's so nice.' But what did you expect? That I would come in and say '... you?'," she laughs, interjecting an obscenity.
"It's pretty interesting."
Audiences will likely see a softer side of Rapace in the sequel to Guy Ritchie's Sherlock Holmes, which is in production in London. Though she wouldn't reveal much about her role, she said she plays a gypsy and plans to visit some gypsy camps outside Paris and in Transylvania for research purposes in the coming months.
She was offered the part only weeks after her last LA jaunt, when she first met star Robert Downey Jr.
"We met for half an hour, talking about 'what kind of films do you want to do and how do you want to work?'," she recalls, smoothing down the long hair extensions she had for her role in the Sherlock Holmes follow-up.
"Once we started to talk about the work, then it doesn't matter if it's a big movie star or not. With actors, when you take away all of the things around, like the whole entourage and celebrity thing and the whole circus, it's about something much deeper. You can talk with an open heart, and I totally forgot that he was a big, famous movie star. Then it's like, this is a real actor and I really like to talk to him."
Meanwhile, she continues to work on her English - which she barely spoke at all only a little more than a year ago. It was only then, when The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo was about to be released, that she realised she'd have to hone her foreign-language skills.
"I almost panicked when the first film was at the opening night in Stockholm, because it was like, the producers called me in the morning and said, 'We have hundreds of journalists from Europe, can we do like two extra press conferences tomorrow?'," she says, laughing. "I was like, 'Ah, no, I just want to go and hide somewhere!'."
Nowadays, she's nearly fluent - and has even developed an affinity for some English-language television programmes.
"For me, acting is my job, and I'm supposed to be travelling around talking about it. So to not have the words - I just decided that it couldn't be like that," she says.
"I've started watching some kind of channel called Starz, and a show called (Inside the Actors Studio). It's very interesting."
• FREEBIES
The Otago Daily Times has three copies of the book, The Girl Who Kicked the Hornets' Nest, plus three double passes to the movie to give away. To enter the draw, email your name, address and daytime phone number to playtime@odt.co.nz with Hornets' Nest in the subject line.
