Elise Gabrielle Poncet (born August 28, 1987) is a French-American actress. She is best known for her role as Lisbeth Salander in the American adaptation of The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, based on Steig Larsson's Millenium book series. She received widespread critical acclaim for the role and was nominated for a Golden Globe Award for Best Actress in a Motion Picture - Drama and an Academy Award for Best Actress.
EARLY LIFE
Poncet was born in Montpellier, France to Marie Lucas, an event coordinator, and Robert Poncet, a school teacher. She has an older brother, Nicolas, a chef who currently resides in New York.
Poncet's father is of French and Catalan descent. Her mother is a third-generation American of French and English descent. Her parents met as students in Montpellier, where her mother was completing a study abroad program. She moved to France after graduation and the two were married.
In 1994, when Poncet was seven years old, her parents separated. She and her brother moved to the United States with their mother, where they settled near family in Northern Virginia. Her father initially continued to teach in France, but spent much of Poncet's childhood teaching in international schools in Spain. In 2001, he accepted a post at the Washington International School, where Poncet subsequently enrolled. She graduated in 2005.
Poncet was attracted to the performing arts from young age. She briefly took piano lessons as a child, but was convinced her shyness would be too much to overcome during recitals and soon withdrew from them. She regularly attended artistic performances and film screenings with her father and credits him with helping her develop her love for both. Poncet did not pursue acting as a child and has stated that "growing up around Washington, with it as straight-laced as it is, I think I always felt pressured to measure up to that in some way. I thought that whatever I pursued had to be academic in some traditional way. No one really asserted that onto me. I honestly think I was just scared." She took her first acting classes on weekends during her final year of high school, her initial enrollment having been a Christmas gift from her brother.
Poncet was accepted at Columbia University, but deferred her enrollment to travel and "explore this undeniable pull I had toward acting." In late 2005, she moved to Los Angeles to pursue the career full-time.
CAREER
Poncet made her television debut in 2006 with the role of Jenny Budosh on Veronica Mars and had the recurring role of Joni on Gilmore Girls. Her first feature film role came as Rachel in 2008's The Informers.
She had a role in 2009's Youth in Revolt. Poncet had initially auditioned for the starring role of Sheeni Saunders. She was amongst the finalists for the part, but was offered the smaller role of Taggarty instead, the director wanting her to be involved in the film but not believing she was the best fit for the lead. Though she thickened her accent for it, to date it is the only role for which she has spoken French.
In the 2009 film Whip It, Poncet played her first lead role, Bliss Cavendar, in Drew Barrymore's directorial debut. Later that year she was cast as Erica Albright in The Social Network, David Fincher's biopic drama film about the founding of social networking site, Facebook.
After an audition process that lasted over two and a half months, Poncet was cast as the lead in the American adaptation of the Millenium book trilogy, by Stieg Larsson. The film marked her second collaboration with David Fincher, who initially had believed she was wrong for the part and had not allowed her to audition.
Poncet underwent a physical transformation for the role. Her hair was cut short and dyed black, her eyebrows were bleached, and she voluntarily received several piercings. She learned to skateboard to alter her gait, studied computer programming, and worked with a dialect coach to prepare for the part. She stated that the latter was "arguably my favorite part of the prep work. I'm obsessed with learning different accents and the nuances of different languages. Swedish was so different from anything I'd tried before."
Filming for The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo begin in the fall of 2010 and took place in Sweden, Norway, London, and Los Angeles. The film was released on December 20, 2011. Poncet was nominated for various critics' awards for her performance, including a Golden Globe Award for Best Actress in a Motion Picture - Drama and an Academy Award for Best Actress. She was awarded with a Breakthrough Performance prize by the National Board of Review and with the Virtuoso Award by the Santa Barbara International Film Festival.
In 2012, Poncet signed on to the independent film Ain't Them Bodies Saints. The film premiered at the 2013 Sundance Film Festival. That same year, she starred in Tracks, based on the true story of Robyn Davidson's nine-month journey across the Australian desert.
She played Sam Thomson in 2014's Academy Award for Best Picture winner, Birdman, and as Lydia Howland in Still Alice.
In late 2014, Poncet was attached Una, the big screen adaptation of Scottish playwright's 2005 drama, Blackbird. According to Variety, the film is about a man, Ray, who "is confronted with his past when the young and beautiful Una arrives unannounced at his office. Fifteen years earlier, the two had an illicit affair, for which Ray was arrested and imprisoned. He has since built a new life for himself; she is looking for answers." Production took place in Southern England in the summer of 2015. The film is expected to be released in 2016. She will also appear in the adaptation of The Light Between Oceans, to be released September 7th, 2016.
ETC
- regularly doodles on the insides of her right wrist (left-handed). usually it's something meaningful, momentarily or otherwise. when missing family, she'll scribble the coordinates of her paternal grandparents' home, or a few words from a shared memory there. it's been suggested she just get a tattoo, but she considers herself too fickle to make one permanent.
- doesn't speak with a discernible accent when speaking in english, but has been told that changes when around her french family.
- her first "real" love passed away whilst she was in high school, killed in a drunk driving accident. she refuses to get in a car driven by anyone with even mildly questionable sobriety.
- spent much of her academy award "campaign season" retreating back to france for respites with her grandparents, who she's gone to for an escape since the days when her parents were working through their troubled marriage. the media did not seem to comprehend her "disappearances."
- though her rising fame has made it difficult in recent years, she loves vacationing alone. instead of lying by the beach for days, she'd rather hitchhike through the south of france, or backpack through peru (and she has).
