Rooney Mara almost quit acting after Elm Street remake: It 'was not a good experience'

Rooney Mara seemingly had her own nightmare to endure on the set of A Nightmare on Elm Street.

In an interview with the LaunchLeft podcast, the two-time Oscar nominee said she could have quit acting altogether after her experience on the 2010 horror remake. It wasn't until working with director David Fincher on 2011's The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo that her perspective changed.

"A few years before [The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo], I had done a Nightmare on Elm Street remake, which was not a good experience," Mara said on the podcast. "I have to be careful with what I say and how I talk about it. It wasn't the best experience making it and I got to this place, that I still live in, that I don't want to act unless I'm doing stuff that I feel like I have to do. So after making that film, I decided, 'OK, I'm just not going to act anymore unless it's something that I feel that way about.'"

New Line / Warner Bros Rooney Mara appears as Nancy in 2010's 'A Nightmare on Elm Street.'

Mara starred as Nancy in the remake of Wes Craven's original, about Freddy Krueger, a serial killer with burned fleshed and blades fashioned for finger nails who claims his victims by terrorizing them in their dreams. Samuel Bayer directed, with Jackie Earle Haley's Freddy stalking the likes of Kyle Gallner, Katie Cassidy, Kellan Lutz, and Thomas Dekker.

Mara previously told EW in 2011 that she "didn't really even want" the part. "And then I went in [to audition] and I was like, [whispering] 'F—. I definitely got that,'" she said.

The Women Talking and Nightmare Alley actress also said at the time that the film wasn't "what I signed up for." She elaborated, "If this is what my opportunities are going to be like, then I'm not that interested in acting. So I was very discouraged and disheartened."

Continuing on the LaunchLeft podcast, Mara pointed to Fincher as the one who turned things around for her on The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo.

"David really took me under his wing. He became my mentor in a lot of ways," she recalled. "He took such great care to make sure that I knew that I had a voice and that my opinion meant something. He constantly was empowering me, which I think really affected the rest of my choices thereafter."

Listen to the full podcast on LaunchLeft.

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