INTERVIEW GRAZIA
Rosamund Pike’s scene-stealing performance in this year’s most talked about film, Saltburn, already has Oscars buzz – but she says it’s rejections that have made her who she is today
Rosamund pike and I are sitting in a dark wood-clad room in the Jacobean Boston Manor House in Brentford. It was once, a small sign informs us, ‘James Clitherow III’s strongroom’, built by the then-owner to safely store documents.
‘A strongroom,’ Pike says slowly, reading the caption aloud in her distinctive low, luxurious register. ‘That’s pretty cool.’
This seems a very Rosamund Pike thing to pick up on. A magpie for detail, she channels her astute obser vational skills into nuanced performances on screen and stage, from Gone Girl’s Amy Dunne and scheming con-woman Marla in I Care A Lot, to Marie Colvin (A Private War) and Marie Curie (R adioactive). Formidably intelligent with imperious good looks, from a distance she could read as intimidating , but in person Pike sparkles with warmth, humour and genuine interest in those around her.
One of her new year’s resolutions, she tells me (apart from cutting down on the ‘ bizarre quantities’ of dark chocolate she consumes), is to take herself less seriously. Does she have a propensity to do that ? ‘Errr, I am thoughtful. I think about things. But I can also take the piss [out of myself ], which was fun to do on the shoot today,’ she says, referencing the Grazia photo shoot, which has just wrapped, her lavish Dior looks swapped for black pants and biker boots, make-up removed ahead of a flight this evening. ‘ There are moments when you’re being focused and you look around this room of 10 brilliantly creative people – and the focal point is you, in a big dress – and you sort of think, this is mad!’
A grand house like this, with nooks and crannies, is familiar turf for Pike, who currently stars in Emerald Fennell’s latest directorial outing , Saltburn. Should you find yourself entering the holiday season’s close-proximity family time with trepidation, consider it essential viewing. The film is a grotesque, thrilling illustration of Tolstoy’s assertion that ‘each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way’. Rough precis: working-class loner Oliver (Barry Keoghan) is taken under the wing of dazzling , aristocratic heart-throb Felix (Jacob Elordi) at Oxford University in the mid-noughties, Felix invites him to spend the summer at his sprawling estate, the titular Saltburn. No spoilers, but… twists ensue.
