Noomi Rapace vows to keep “fighting” Hollywood’s attitude toward “sexualising” actresses

Noomi believes “things are slowly changing” thanks to the #MeToo and Time’s Up movements, but insists the fight for equality in film is far from over.

She said: “Things are slowly changing, but I have been fighting this structure, the way actresses are sexualised, since I started acting, not just after #MeToo. And not just on screen, but in the industry, too. I’ve been trying to avoid becoming a ‘cute object’. I fight it every day. I want to be a mirror of the world on screen instead.”

The ‘Prometheus’ actress wants to see more roles for women that are “raw” instead of “polished and sexy”, and believes it’s important to show women taking control of their own lives.

She added: “We can’t wait for things to happen, we need our own oxygen. I feel it is also important not to see yourself as a victim. You give away power when you do that.”

Noomi insists “everything” she does is “grounded” in politics in some way, but says it’s difficult to strike a good balance because she doesn’t want to “be a celebrity” and have people “know too much” about her.

She said: “Everything I do, even creating my unisex perfume, is grounded in my politics. But it is a difficult balance, because I try not to be a celebrity. I don’t want people to know too much about me. I want audiences to forget who I am when I act.”

The star was most recently seen in ‘Close’, a movie about a female bodyguard, and says she’s interested in working on more films “about women”.

Speaking to The Observer, she said: “I want to do more work about women. ‘Close’, the last film I made with my friend, the director Vicky Jewson, was about a woman bodyguard. We are working on a second project together now. It is set in the 1970s again, an era I love, and it is about Sylvia Raphael, the Mossad agent involved in the Lillehammer affair.”