Rosamund Pike Biography

Rosamund Pike
Pike at the 2007 Toronto International Film Festival
Born	January 27, 1979 (1979-01-27) (age 29) London, England
Years active	1998 - present
Awards won Other awards British Independent Film Award for Best Supporting Actress/Actor 2004 The Libertine Empire Award for Best Newcomer 2002 Die Another Day

Rosamund Pike (born January 27, 1979) is an English actress. She is perhaps best known for her portrayals of Bond villainess Miranda Frost in Die Another Day and Jane Bennet in Pride and Prejudice.

Biography

Early life

Pike is the only child of Caroline and Julian Pike, both musical performers. She attended Badminton School in Bristol before studying English Literature at Wadham College, Oxford. While there, she studied under both Bernard O'Donoghue, the Whitbread prize-winning poet, and Robert J.C. Young, the eminent post-colonial theorist. An able student, she achieved a First Class in her first year examinations (known as Moderations) and, after taking a year off to pursue her career, returned to complete her degree in 2001, gaining an Upper Second.

She garnered stage experience in student productions, including David Hare's Skylight, Arthur Miller's All My Sons, and several plays by Shakespeare. While appearing in a production of Romeo and Juliet at the National Youth Theatre, she was noticed by an agent who helped her embark upon a professional career.

Career

Pike's British television roles appearances include A Rather English Marriage (1998), Wives and Daughters (1999), and Love in a Cold Climate (2001), a mini-series based on the Nancy Mitford novels The Pursuit of Love and Love in a Cold Climate. She appeared as "Sarah Beaumont" in an episode of the series Foyle's War.

Pike became known to a wider audience in Die Another Day as a rogue MI-6 agent originally assigned to aid James Bond. During the film's release she appeared in the special show Bond Girls Are Forever and, shortly thereafter, the BAFTA tribute to the James Bond series.

Pike played Elizabeth Malet in The Libertine (2005) co-starring Johnny Depp, which won her the Best Supporting Actress award at the British Independent Film Awards. In the same year, she portrayed Rose in The Promised Land (a film about Israel), as well as starring as scientist Samantha Grimm in the cinematic adaptation of the computer game Doom. And she appeared as Jane, the elder sister of Elizabeth (played by Keira Knightley), in Pride & Prejudice.

She has a role in the film adaptation of Anne Michaels' novel Fugitive Pieces, and is recording voicework for a lead role in the forthcoming film Jackboots on Whitehall.

Pike also starred as a successful attorney in the movie Fracture, opposite Anthony Hopkins and Ryan Gosling. The film was her first experience of shooting a movie in Los Angeles.¹

Her stage credits include Hitchcock Blonde by Terry Johnson (in a role requiring her to appear nude on stage) and Tennessee Williams' Summer and Smoke, both in London's West End, and Gaslight at London's Old Vic Theatre. Pike has said that she would be happy to do at least one play every year.² She will next appear in the Donmar's West End season³.

Personal life

She is a skilled cellist and speaks fluent German and French. She currently lives in the West End. While at Oxford she started a relationship with Simon Woods. She was engaged in 2007 to director Joe Wright, but they called off the wedding they had been planning to hold in 2008.⁴

Roles

Footnotes

External links

• Rosamund Pike at the Internet Movie Database
• Do You Like Me Now? Rosamund Pike in The Libertine
• The Ethics of Playing the Unethical interview with Rosamund Pike by Peter Fraser, Close-Up Film
• Fansites:
  • Rosamund Pike Online
  • RosamundPikeWeb.com
  • RosamundPike.co.uk
  • Rosamund Pike Fansite by T.C. Candler