Rooney Marais selective about her projects partly due to an experience she had early on in her acting career.

Speaking with fiancéJoaquin Phoenix’s sisterRain Phoenixfor the latter’sLaunchLeftpodcast last week, the 37-year-old actress revealed she had “not a great experience” doing 2010’sNightmare on Elm Streetremake, in which she played protagonist/final girl Nancy Holbrook.

“A few years before [The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo], I’d done aNightmare on Elm Streetremake, which was not a great experience, making it,” said Mara. “I have to be careful with what I say and how I talk about it, butit wasn’t the best experience, making it.”

“And I kind of got to this place, that I still live in, of I don’t want to act unless I’m doing stuff that I feel like Ihaveto do,” the actress added.

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Rooney Mara Didn’t Want to ‘Act Anymore’ After ‘Not a Good Experience’ Filming Nightmare on Elm Street

After she made the horror flick — a reboot ofWes Craven’s 1984 film of the same name — Mara said she “kind of decided, ‘Okay, well, I’m just not going to act anymore unless it’s something that I feel that way about.’ "

Soon, she got an audition forThe Social Network, for “a small part, but it was an amazing scene.”

“And then I didn’t work again from that until, I think,Dragon Tattoo,” Mara said.

Mara made her film debut in another horror film, 2005’sUrban Legends: Bloody Mary, and would go on to appear in mostly drama films, fromHer(also starring Joaquin, 48) toCarol(2015) andNightmare Alley(2021).

She has been nominated forOscarstwice: for her performances in bothThe Girl with the Dragon Tattoo(2011) andCarol. She most recently appeared inWomen Talking.

Rooney Mara.TOMMASO BODDI/AFP via Getty

Rooney Mara Didn’t Want to ‘Act Anymore’ After ‘Not a Good Experience’ Filming Nightmare on Elm Street

In October, FilmNation announced that Mara and Joaquin, who made their red-carpet debut as a couple at the 2017Cannes Film Festival, will star in lead roles in directorPawel Pawlikowski’s next movie. The movie currently uses the working titleThe Island, according toThe Hollywood ReporterandVariety.

“Psychological warfare ensues between the countess and the American couple as sexual infidelity, betrayal and eventuallymurder takes place among the island interlopers,” reads a synopsis for the film, perTHR.

“Pawel Pawlikowski is one of the world’s greatest filmmakers working today,” FilmNation CEO Glen Basner toldTHR. “Pawel bringing this story of jealousy, betrayal and murder in a Garden of Eden is exactly what we all need to drive audiences back to the cinema.”

source: people.com