What's so great about 'Gone Girl' is the conversations it provokes.
— Rosamund Pike
I just hope and pray that I never get threatened by younger actresses coming up behind me. I hope I won't, but you never know what's going to hit you.
There was a time during 'Gone Girl' that I'd come home, and I'd say, 'I get to be every part of being a woman in this role.' For me, I feel it much more as a springboard for the work I'm going to take on thereafter.
Some women can feel under-qualified due to a general lack of confidence whereas, in fact, they are uniquely qualified.
You want to make entertainment sometimes, and sometimes you want to make art, because I think the way we understand ourselves as human beings is through art, and the way we process emotions - I know I do - is through recognizing experiences on screen or in novels or in paintings.
It's not easy casting the men. You have to go gingerly, but you have to approach the right man at the right time because men don't want to play second fiddle to a woman. That's the truth.
I grew up without any security - I obviously had lots of security because I have two parents who had a good marriage and stayed together, and we had a creative household full of ideas, but there was never any financial security. So I knew I could have a good life without that.
I can read significance into tiny, tiny things. If I'd met someone 10 years ago and not seen them again, and then I suddenly bumped into them, I'd feel that that was 'meant,' or there's a fate, you know?
I'm not frightened of what people will think an more. Because, you know, when you're a teenager or in your early 20s, you're always frightened of what people will think.
When you're about to get married, and then you're not, it's all a big shock. You think, 'Well, okay, so I'm never going to lead a totally conventional life now.'
I'm kind of desperately looking for those things that will... you know, sort of show my wilder side, in a way, my much more irreverent, badly behaved side.
When the eyes are on you for the first time, you can't believe that people aren't criticising you.
I never thought I'd make any money at all doing this business. Film was never even on the cards.
I do know that the key to anything good is feeling relaxed and free. That's the main thing that you can offer yourself as an actor.
Actresses generally aren't allowed to have haircuts, because short hair isn't considered as versatile.
I think when you are an only child, parents are more protective and fearful because they've only got one of you. I was not allowed to do a lot of things that, if I'd been, say, number three, I would have.
You just never know who's going to have chemistry. You can put two of the sexiest people in the world together, and they could be completely flat.
I certainly relish the chance to play a woman who didn't have to conform in any way ever to expected behavior or desirable behavior or attractive behavior.
You become sillier and more youthful as you get older, maybe, because you're over all your anxieties.
Any actress - goodness, we're lucky to be working. We all know that. There are few parts, a few good ones.
I am drawn to courageous women.
I think I needed rather than wanted to be an actor. There is not another way to put it.
I've often felt I don't belong quite wherever I am.
I didn't know where film came from when I was under 10. I just thought I'd be a stage actress. I always knew money would be tough, but that never frightened me.
I think it's one of the great enrichments of life, romance.
I think I'll be flavor of the month when I'm in my fifties.
As a woman, you feel that you shouldn't want to better yourself against others. Ambition has become such an ugly word, hasn't it?
Acting is about communicating what it is like to be human: the pain, the laughs, the misery, the joy. I suppose I am searching to have it all.
If someone makes you feel wrong-footed, you're unlikely to find them witty.
One goes on with the blithe belief that who you really are is transparent to everybody. Then you realise, with some horror, that in fact it's not. So all you can do is keep muddying the waters a bit.
You get those couples who are very fearful of bringing children into the mix because they feel like somehow that link between them as a couple is going to somehow dissolve or become less powerful or whatever. And that somehow the child is going to disrupt their happy stage.
Sometimes it irks when people come up in the street and say, 'Oh I'm a huge James Bond fan' - when you obviously want them to be a fan of your work in particular.
I would love to play the lead in a big romantic comedy. That's definitely a dream of mine.
You can get things out of acting with someone a second time around that you don't necessarily get the first time because you're more familiar, more comfortable.
When I was about 21, everyone thought I was about 30.
Feminism will never reach the next stage until women stop competing with each other on the level of looks.
I have worked with three female first assistant directors - on 'Hostiles,' 'Gone Girl,' and a short film, 'The Human Voice,' and they have all been exceptional.
People are saying we need more females in our industry and we need more female-driven stories, but that takes the men of bankable star quality to come forward and play supporting roles in those films because, ultimately, that's what the women have always done.
I decided to finish at Oxford because I looked up at the top of the buildings - the gargoyles and spires - and decided to stay.
There are lots and lots of good actors out there, and often it's just luck if what you bring to the table syncs with the director's vision.
I wanted to be an actress since I was really, really small. I knew I didn't want to sing, and I didn't want to do music, and words were the ways I wanted to express myself.
I used to get nervous just going to the stage door, seeing people waiting to talk to me. I was afraid of being caught out in some way or not being right.
Especially in Britain, people want to limit you.
Perhaps misguidedly, I always admire the people who are so polished.
I work in the entertainment industry, and I like to be entertained.
I remember times of anxiety, ups and downs, and times of unexpected windfalls. But my parents loved what they did. And because their work was also their hobby, it taught me that work could be fulfilling.
I've been on stage plenty of times, and one of the things about being a stage actress is you have a 3-month run to revisit the story nightly and play it again.
Peter Chelsom and Edgar Wright are totally different directors and worlds apart, but both really accomplished directors who are certain of how they want to make a film.
I find I clash sometimes with people who like to plan things and book you in for lunch. I'd rather someone call me up, say: 'Are you free tonight and d'you wanna go to the roller-disco? Or play pool?'
There are certainly contemporaries that I admire, like Emily Blunt. I think she is amazing.
