It's the role that made her a hot Hollywood property, but actress Rooney Mara doesn't know when -- or if -- she'll step back into hacker-punk Lisbeth Salander's well-worn combat boots.

"I would love to do it. I really would," Mara told MTV News of reprising her role in "The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo" sequel, "The Girl Who Played With Fire."

The 2011 thriller, co-starring Daniel Craig and directed by David Fincher, earned more than $100 million domestically, with Sony greenlighting a sequel in early 2012. Yet, more than a year later, little progress has been made on the adaptation of Stieg Larsson's best-seller. Recent reports indicate that Andrew Kevin Walker ("Se7en") has been hired to rewrite the screenplay penned by Steve Zaillian, though Mara was loathe to reveal too much of the production's inner workings.

"I cannot confirm or deny what I have or have not read," she said with a sly grin. "I'm excited about it. I hope it gets made. I don't know."

With Fincher currently focused on another novel adaptation -- Gillian Flynn's "Gone Girl" -- there's always the possibility the franchise could be passed off to another director. How does Mara feel about that?

"Well, people always ask me that," she said. "I wouldn't have a choice, contractually. I have to do it no matter whether you [points to interviewer] directed it. Obviously, we all worked on the film together for a year. And like for this movie ["Ain't Them Bodies Saints"], we worked for three weeks, and we were like a family by the end of it, and we got so close. So imagine a year of that. It would be hard to have someone new come in. I would certainly be very sad. I love the character so much. I'd love to do it, but of course, I'd be sad if it wasn't David."

[uma_snippet id="1712209"]