Rooney Mara nearly quit acting after 'A Nightmare on Elm Street': It 'was not a good experience'

• Rooney Mara said she nearly quit acting after working on the "A Nightmare on Elm Street" remake.
• The star said it "was not a good experience" but it helped her be careful when picking future roles.

Rooney Mara has rocketed to stardom in the last decade thanks to a number of critically praised performances, like her turn as determined hacker Lisbeth Salander in David Fincher's "The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo," opposite Daniel Craig.

But before she starred in the dark thriller, she starred in 2010's "A Nightmare on Elm Street" remake from director Samuel Bayer. Although it was financially successful, it was met with negative reviews from audiences and critics, earning itself a 14% rating on Rotten Tomatoes.

Although it was one of the films that helped her career take off, Mara recently told the "LaunchLeft" podcast that she didn't have a great time on set.

She said: "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."

However, the actor didn't go into specific details about why she didn't like working on the film, noting that she has to "be careful with what I say and how I talk about it," before adding: "It wasn't the best experience making it."

Mara played the updated version of final girl Nancy, played by Heather Langenkamp in Wes Craven's original movie, opposite Jackie Earle Haley's demonic killer, Freddy Krueger.

She went on to say that it helped shift her perspective on what kind of roles she wants to take on.

Mara said: "I kind of 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. After making that film, I kind of decided, 'OK, I'm just not going to act anymore unless it's something that I feel that way about.'"

The next movie the star worked on was Fincher's movie about the rise of Facebook, "The Social Network," which also led to Mara working with the director on "The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo."

Mara pointed out that she had to prove she could handle the darker role in the audition process but explained that the director "really took me under his wing."

She said: "He became my mentor in a lot of ways. 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."