Rosamund Pike
Rosamund Mary Ellen Pike[2] (born 1979)[a] is a British actress. Pike studied at Wadham College, Oxford and began her acting career by appearing in stage productions including Romeo and Juliet at the National Youth Theatre. She had her breakthrough for her film debut as Bond girl Miranda Frost in Die Another Day (2002), and had supporting roles in the period dramas The Libertine (2004), Pride & Prejudice (2005), An Education (2009) and Made in Dagenham (2010).
Rosamund Pike
Actress
1998–present
Robie Uniacke (2009–present)
2
In the next decade, Pike had mainstream film appearances in Johnny English Reborn (2011), The Big Year (2011), Wrath of the Titans (2012), Jack Reacher (2012) and The World's End (2013). Her starring role as Amy Dunne in the psychological thriller Gone Girl (2014) earned her nominations for the BAFTA, Golden Globe and Academy Award for Best Actress. Pike then portrayed Ruth Williams Khama in the biopic A United Kingdom (2016) and Marie Colvin in the war film A Private War (2018).
Pike won a Primetime Emmy Award for her role in the comedy miniseries State of the Union (2019) and a Golden Globe for her leading performance in the black comedy film I Care a Lot (2020).[3][4] In 2021, she began starring as Moiraine Damodred in the Amazon Prime Video fantasy series The Wheel of Time. She received further BAFTA and Golden Globe nominations for her supporting role in the black comedy film Saltburn (2023).
Early life and education[edit]
Pike was born in 1979 in Hammersmith, London,[5] the only child of opera singers Julian Pike and Caroline Friend.[2][6][7]
She attended Badminton School in Bristol, and while appearing as Juliet 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.
After being turned down by every stage school to which she applied, she gained a place to read English literature at Wadham College, Oxford. She graduated with an Upper Second-class honours degree in 2001, having taken a year off to pursue her acting career, gaining stage experience in David Hare's Skylight, Arthur Miller's All My Sons, and several plays by William Shakespeare.[8]
Career[edit]
1998–2013: Early roles and breakthrough[edit]
While she was still at Oxford, Pike acted in and directed various plays, including one by Simon Chesterman, who was then a graduate student.[9] She made appearances on British television shows, including A Rather English Marriage (1998),[10] Wives and Daughters (1999), and the miniseries Love in a Cold Climate (2001). She appeared as Sarah Beaumont in an episode of the series Foyle's War. After graduating, she was offered a role as a Bond girl and MI6 agent assigned to aid James Bond in Die Another Day, and also appeared in the show Bond Girls Are Forever and, shortly afterwards, the BAFTA tribute to the James Bond film series. She was the first Bond girl to have gone to Oxford.[11] Pike then played Elizabeth Malet in The Libertine (2004), co-starring Johnny Depp,[12] which won her the British Independent Film Award for Best Supporting Actress.[13] In the same year, she portrayed Rose in Promised Land, a film about Israel,[10] and starred as scientist Samantha Grimm in the cinematic adaptation of the computer game series Doom.[14]
Personal life[edit]
Relationships[edit]
While at Oxford, Pike was in a relationship with Simon Woods which lasted two years.[39] They later played the lovers Jane Bennet and Charles Bingley in Pride & Prejudice. She then became engaged to the director of that production, Joe Wright; their engagement ended in 2008.[40]
Since December 2009, Pike has been in a relationship with Robie Uniacke, a businessman, and they have two sons, both fluent in Mandarin.[41][42][43][44] They live in Prague.[45] In 2015, when they visited China to promote Gone Girl, Pike mentioned that Uniacke had given her a Chinese name 裴淳华 (traditional Chinese: 裴淳華, pinyin: Péi Chúnhuá, IPA: [pʰěɪ ʈʂʰwə̌n.xwǎ]),[46] and, that, being admirers of Chinese culture, they would like the media to use this as her Chinese name rather than using the transliteration of her English name.[47]
Activism[edit]
In 2015, Pike signed an open letter for which the ONE Campaign had been collecting signatures; the letter was addressed to Angela Merkel and Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma, urging them to focus on women, as they would serve as the head of the Group of Seven (G7) and the African Union (AU), respectively, which would start to set the priorities for development funding in preparation for a United Nations (UN) summit in September 2015, which was intended to establish new development goals for the next generation.[48]
In 2021, Pike became an investor in, and the creative director for, the psychedelic-inspired meditation app Lumenate, which purports to guide the user into an altered state of consciousness.[49] However, in a 2023 interview with The Guardian, Pike expressed a belief that "we’re all being conned by the wellness industry" and "this idea that it’s no longer enough to be healthy and we have to be “well” is something that needs to be interrogated." She noted "it’s so seductive because it’s in pursuit of things that people are ashamed to want" and called it "really dangerous."[45]
Also in 2021, Pike became the first ever Ambassador for Mines Advisory Group, the Nobel Peace Prize-winning NGO that assists people affected by landmines, unexploded ordnance, and small arms and light weapons.[50][51]