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12 Rooney Mara Facts That Prove She’s A Consummate Professional

By Stacey Cole
Published on: 00:57 PST, Feb 2, 2016

Rooney Mara is a consummate professional, with many facets to her personality. She is stunningly gorgeous, wealthy, and a talented actress. In fact, she is so talented, she has received her second Oscar nomination for Best Supporting Actress for her role in Carol.

So what makes Rooney Mara such an interesting woman? Take a look.

1. Useless Daily reports that Rooney Mara comes from an NFL family, on both sides. Her father’s family founded and owns the New York Giants, and her mother’s family founded and owns the Pittsburgh Steelers. Despite this, Mara hates it when people ask about her football family.

“I hate it when people ask me about my family — my football family. It has no relevance to acting.”

2. After she graduated from high school, Rooney Mara joined the Traveling School and toured Peru, Ecuador, and Bolivia in an open learning environment.

3. Rooney Mara is the founder of Faces of Kibera, which is a charity that strives to ensure orphans (many are so due to HIV/AIDS) in Kibera (in Nairobi, Kenya) are provided with shelter, food, and medical care.

She was inspired to start the charity after volunteering there in 2006, when she became frustrated that the children weren’t getting the help they needed.

“The people who need help aren’t really getting it. So I started my own.”

4. In order to prepare for her role in The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, for which she was nominated for an Oscar, Rooney Mara learned kickboxing and skateboarding. She also visited Stockholm, where the movie was set, and took computer and dialect coaching.

5. Rooney Mara got a number of body piercings for her role in The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, including four in each ear and her brow and right nipple.

6. According to Boomsbeat, Rooney Mara attended University. Initially, she went to George Washington University and later transferred to New York University’s Gallatin School of Individualized Study. She graduated in 2010 after studying international social policy and non-profits and psychology.

7. Style Caster reports that Rooney Mara is so stunning and has such a presence she rocked the red carpet at the 2014 Sundance Film Festival dressed down in jeans, a baggy black sweater, and messy hair.

8. Irish Central reports that Rooney Mara starred as Juliet in her high school production of Romeo and Juliet, but she said she would have rather been Romeo.

“I would have much preferred to be Romeo; it’s a much better part. That was my first and only part in a play in high school.”

9. Rooney Mara’s older sister, Kate Mara, is also an actress and once appeared in FX’s American Horror Story. She accompanied Rooney to the premiere of The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo.

10. Even though she doesn’t smoke, Rooney Mara admitted that she craved cigarettes when she was in character for Lisbeth in The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo. She told Allure about it.

“I don’t smoke. I smoked for the film. I think I’m addicted in costume and in character. If I had to go to set right now and work, I would crave a cigarette. But otherwise, I don’t.”

11. Rooney Mara also told Allure that she didn’t have time to be uncomfortable with the nudity required of her part.

“Nudity is such a huge part of the character in the book, so I never thought twice about it. There was no time for hesitation. I didn’t have time to second-guess anything or be scared; I just showed up and was comfortable.”

12. Rooney Mara says she and her sister are very different people.

“[My sister and I] are just completely different as people. We haven’t found anything that we’d want to do together yet. But we do want to [work together] at some point.”

[Photo by Alberto E. Rodriguez/Getty Images]

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