SINCE making a splashy big-screen debut as Miranda Frost in the blockbuster James Bond movie Die Another Day (2002), British actress Rosamund Pike has wowed audiences and critics alike in films and on television that tested her versatility as an actress, from the harrowing drama Promised Land (2004) to popcorn fare Wrath of the Titans (2012).
Now, Pike can be seen in her most daunting big-screen outing thus far: Gone Girl, Academy Award-nominated director David Fincher’s film adaptation of the global literary phenomenon written by Gillian Flynn. Pike plays Amy Dunne, a former journalist who goes missing, leading police—and the public—to suspect that she was killed by her husband Nick. She stars opposite Academy Award winner Ben Affleck.
In the following, Pike is interviewed by her Gone Girl director David Fincher.
David Fincher: Had you read the book when you were first contacted about playing Amy?
Rosamund Pike: Don’t you remember? I was reading it when I was on another job and…
I know the answers to these questions! I’m pretending to be a journalist.
(Laughter)
I said I wanted to start talking to you while I was still reading the book, rather than when I had finished the book, because I thought that would be more interesting. So we started our first conversation when I was about a third of the way through.
It’s a totally different story at that point.
Yeah, exactly, but I remember saying, “I don’t fully trust the voice of this character because I don’t like her and I know I’m being asked to like this woman.” I think we had three conversations, so the book was divided into three installments with conversations with you in between, which is a good sort of way of processing all this information. I generally mistrust people who seem…well, Amy is, in some ways, the ideal wife, you know? She’s the woman who’s generally fun-loving, carefree, easygoing and every time her man screws up, she’s just saying, ‘Oh, it’s fine.’ And there’s a point in that where I thought, “I don’t necessarily trust this.” Or else I was just mad at a woman who’s able to put up with more than I can…
So you closed the book after your first wading-through. What was your take on the material and what was your take on the character?
It disturbs you in a way you can’t quite process. I was working on another movie at the time and the actor I was with was being hounded by paparazzi and we were filming in a public place. I needed to talk to someone, so I was talking to him about this and he said, “I don’t think you should be telling me about this book because your face looks very concerned, really kind of dark and we’re being photographed right now….”
The book gets under your skin: You’re dealing with a world in which people know each other so well; it’s the sort of familiarity that can breed something quite sinister. In a way, it’s a game about two players and how they play each other.
Was Amy somebody that you wanted to play?
Without a doubt! Amy is an excellent character. She’s purely female in her brain chemistry, which is unusual to read, so that was exciting. She’s not a siren who uses sex. I mean, she doesn’t use her sort of sexual power to achieve her end. And I’d never read anything like it. Gillian [Flynn], through Amy, articulates ideas that I’ve never read before about relationships. Amy is an actress—and a good one—and that is very interesting to play, deconstructing and dissecting what you do for a living and how much performance goes on in everyday life. Everybody these days knows how to perform; they’re editing their lives, showing favorable images of themselves, you know, reconstructing history to seek their ends. We live in a world of performers. Politicians and news pundits perform and that’s sort of the world in which Gillian’s set her book.
Do you normally enjoy popular literary phenomenon?
I feel there’s an obligation to read them. That said, I’ve not read 50 Shades of Grey. I feel one has to be aware of them. So, yes, there are lots of unread books on my shelves that sit there blinking accusatory stares at me.
So were you reticent to read this because it was a bestseller?
No, because it had entered my consciousness in a very interesting way, not by everybody saying, “You have to read it.” As soon as someone says that to me, I usually sort of turn away—how do you know what I like to read?! But it was the variety of people who mentioned it in passing which fascinated me, you know, men and women alike.
So when you read it, did you say to yourself, “i have to be part of this,” or did you think, “depending on the pitch, i might want to be a part of this”?
Depending on the pitch from you?
Yeah.
No; it’s very clear as soon as you start reading the book that it’s very well-written. You know, you’re dealing with a very clever mind who is writing unusually acerbic, rather nasty at times, biting prose. And you think, “There’s a story in this story.” The brain behind the book fascinates me. And your brain is pretty intriguing too…
Was there a big difference between your response to the book and then to the first draft of the screenplay?
It’s hard reading a screenplay for the first time, because an actor is rather self-centered and tends to focus on one part only. It’s hard to get a full grasp till the second reading. So what I knew is that Amy was going to come across in the way she does in the book, but I couldn’t quite know the whole script was going to work like the book.
I remember saying to you when we started talking that I know, for some odd reason, that I’ve got this woman in me and I said I realized that you kind of knew that, too. And I don’t know how you knew that, or why you knew that. That was a very odd feeling; it always is if you identify with dark material.
In some ways it reveals something.
Exactly. And I knew that I could understand that and I could own that. There’s nothing about Amy’s experience that directly ties into my life.
When you read the material, were there people in your life that you were able to say, “that’s amy” or “that’s nick”? “I understand, i’ve seen this relationship, i’ve seen how it plays out….”
No, I don’t think there are any couples I know who operate like that, but I think I’ve read enough, met enough people and I’ve understood myself enough to understand how the dynamics work. I’ve definitely seen relationships where people want to be the happiest or the coolest couple or the sexiest couple or the golden couple.
I don’t know who’s promoted it or provoked it, but I’ve even been around people—I’ve seen the treasure hunt thing before. Also, the person who gives perfect gifts, knowing that whatever gift you give in return will never be good enough! I thought that was very amusing and—well, amusing and troubling.
Let me ask you this. Do you think that the marriage described in this story is universal or is it American?
I didn’t feel like it was specifically American. I felt they could be anywhere. Actually, the French are the ones who have an actual clause in the law that means you can get off for a crime of passion. So they must have a few relationships go this way. I think it’s everywhere.
The narcissism epidemic is probably everywhere, maybe particularly in America because, I don’t know, the sort of mentality in schools that bring children to sing songs about why they’re beautiful or why they’re great or why you’re special—the idea of being special.
Was the process of filming enjoyable or taxing?
Both. It was the hardest work I’ve ever done on a film, but I’d also craved that sort of hard work. I sometimes feel that I haven’t worked hard enough on films. I haven’t been given the opportunity: people have sometimes been satisfied with the take long before I am and in your case, that is not true. So, yeah, I’ve craved being able to work on that level and that also continued into doing the voice-over work as well, that sort of detail.
It was fun for me to have someone who cares as much about inflection and what you can push and what you can say and how you can spin a line as I do. It was hard work but it became more fun as we went on.
And what about your experience in ‘Hollywood’?
Hollywood is a difficult place, especially for a Brit who feels out of her soil, it’s a very strange place.
But the actual work environment, did you find it to be that different, that the hollywood film industry is very different from the British film industry?
No, not different. There’s a bit more balance on a British film set perhaps. I don’t know if it’s the same here but there are a lot of families in the British film industry in certain departments, big and great families of craftsmen and technicians with a trade that goes through generations, so there’s more banter generally. Here it seems more formal. Anyway, your sets are like operating theaters. There’s an intensity of focus, which is fantastic, and not everybody can command.
■ “Gone Girl” opens on October 8 in Philippine cinemas from 20th Century Fox.
Image credits: Merrick Morton