The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo star Noomi Rapace has hit out at the pressure on women to be sexy and attractive in the film industry, and claims that is far more important to be real.

In an interview with the Telegraph this week, the 34-year-old actress says vanity is the very opposite of what acting should be about.

“I had to make a decision, a very strict decision, when I was 21, and that decision was never to make a professional choice based on vanity,” she says. “And it’s really hard. Sometimes I see a movie when it’s finished and I’m like, ‘I look like something is wrong with me!’

But, she continues, “It is so wrong that women can feel they need to be sexy and beautiful to be given attention. For me, acting is the opposite. For me, in films it is more important to be real. If posing and being sexy is my first priority, then I can’t act. That kills everything.”

Rapace certainly isn't one to shy away from challenging and complex roles, having played everyone from Lisbeth Salander, the lead in the original Swedish version of The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo, to a scientist who gives herself a caesarian because she is pregnant with an alien, in Ridley Scott’s Prometheus.

She is currently promoting The Drop, a gritty crime drama co-starring Tom Hardy. She admits her tendency to take on tough parts means people often expect her to be ballsy and angry in real life.

“A lot of people think I’m quite dark and angry and hardcore and really quite kind of super serious,” she says. “And then they meet me and they’re like, ‘Oh my God, you’re so funny and you laugh and you’re smiling so much!’ and I’m like, ‘Yeah, why wouldn’t I?’”

Noomi Rapace “It is wrong women feel they need to be sexy and beautiful to be given attention”