Rosamund Pike has opened up about her experience being asked to do nude scenes, saying it “never benefits the woman to be naked”.
The 47-year-old actor is currently starring on London’s West End as the lead of the acclaimed stage play Inter Alia, and can next be seen on screen in the Netflix comedy film Ladies First.
Set in an alternate universe in which gendered power dynamics are inverted, Ladies First stars Pike alongside Sacha Baron Cohen and Richard E Grant. Speaking to GQ Magazine, Pike was asked whether the film felt like a personal project, and whether she had ever “felt patronised at work” in the past.
She recalled the build-up to the 2003 play Hitchcock Blonde, which was her first stage role after finding fame in the 2002 James Bond outing Die Another Day. The play included a scene in which her character walked across the stage naked.
Ahead of the play, Pike says the director, Terry Johnson, took her out for lunch at a “quite smart Italian restaurant” and asked her “if I understood the implications that in this scene, she is naked”.
“It was such a double-edged sword,” she said, “because I could see the whole thing unfolding. I knew exactly what this meeting was. This was the director, assuaging his own conscience: ‘I’ve done it in the proper way; I’ve taken her out for lunch, we’ve discussed in very gentlemanly fashion that she will be required to be naked, but she also knows that I’m offering her an absolutely plum role.’
“And as an actress, you know that the role is great, but in order to do the role, you have to appear naked.”
Pike said that a similar discussion took place ahead of the 2018 film A Private War, in which she played celebrated war journalist Marie Colvin.
“It happened again on a film [A Private War] where I had to be naked,” she said. “Well, I didn’t have to be, but the director wanted me to be naked in the scene. Matthew Heineman discussed with me in the same empathetic way – ‘The thing is, the film would really benefit from this. It’s about her total vulnerability at this point.’ I said, ‘Matt, I know what you’re asking me.’
“I think he meant it – he did want it for his film, but ultimately, the end result was for his film. It didn’t benefit me. It never benefits the woman to be naked.”
The actor received a Golden Globe nomination for Best Actress in a Motion Picture – Drama after starring in A Private War, but lost out to The Wife’s Glenn Close.
Pike won an Olivier Award for her performance in Inter Alia, playing a high court judge whose moral code is put under scrutiny when her teenage son is accused of sexual violence.
