“What, GGWPG?” asks Rosamund Pike. As responses to a question about working with Paul Giamatti go, it’s not the most obvious answer. Rosamund laughs. “Golden Globe Winner Paul Giamatti,” she explains. “It’s what I now call him in my text messages...”
During our recent chat with Paul Giamatti, he mentioned that he’d been slightly obsessed with Rosamund since seeing the Bond film and was very keen to work with her. Did she have any idea of her co-star’s stalker potential?
“No, no idea. But god, it’s nice of him isn’t it? He really had my back during Barney’s Version, and he’s gone on record saying some really nice things. It’s quite unusual for the more famous person to really stand by the less famous one. Usually it’s the other way round. You want to say ‘I did this with so and so who’s much more famous and successful than I am’ and he’s been saying ‘I really wanted to work with Rosamund.’ It’s really nice.”
And has she spoken to him since the Golden Globe win?
“I’ve texted him. I called him but he never answers his phone.”
Well, he’s done the leg-up thing now.
“Exactly,” laughs Rosamund. “It’s ‘you’re on your own now, Pike...’”
Somehow we doubt that. Even if it’s true, we suspect she’ll be alright as Rosamund’s performance in Barney’s Version is further proof that she’s a very fine actress indeed. In the film, Rosamund plays Miriam, narrator Barney’s third wife and the true love of each other’s lives – even in the face of his extreme cantankerousness.
It is, in short, an excellent film – “an interesting life and times of a nobody really” is how Rosamund describes it – and the reaction has been very positive.
“It’s been lovely. People have been surprised by the film; they’ve come in expecting one thing but have found it’s something different. I think they’ve genuinely enjoyed it, which makes me realise how many of my films people haven’t enjoyed and have been faking...”
Barney and Miriam first meet under rather unusual circumstances: his wedding to his second wife. Indeed, in a fantastically unconventional romantic scene, he leaves the wedding to pursue Miriam to the train station and profess his love. Was that part of the appeal for taking the role?
“The joy is the characters are so good, and Miriam’s not affected in any way. She’s centred enough to live quite a normal life, but that doesn’t mean she doesn’t appreciate – as I do – a man who doesn’t give a damn what people think, who doesn’t heed consequence but just acts, it’s so lovely.
“I’m all for the big gesture. In the end, you don’t remember the good sleeps you got, you remember the craziness.”
As an admirer of the book, Rosamund had her eye on the role of Miriam but “I thought they’d cast someone in their 40s,” she admits. Instead, they age Rosamund in a highly convincing (and now Oscar-nominated) fashion.
“It was really exciting, a real challenge,” admits Rosamund, “because you get to act physically. I talked to dancers, and they talked about this heaviness [as you age], of gravity pulling you down. The full face of the prosthetics - and meeting the author’s widow – was very helpful in terms of Miriam’s body language. You find that women use their hands more as they get older.
The make-up itself was quite a commitment, taking up to three hours to apply. “I didn’t want to go for that crusty dry skin route, that latex you paint on,” explains Rosamund,“so we worked with prosthetics. We wanted to show the course of gravity, so we had pieces on my eyelids that gradually closed my eyes during the film, cheeks that got bigger, a neck piece... Then that gets painted, they added these little thread veins, and then over the top of that, I did Miriam’s make-up and then, suddenly, she felt real.”
Unsurprisingly, with her classic looks and bone structure, Rosamund ages rather beautifully. Even so. was it a shock seeing how she might look in 30 years’ time?
“I looked like my mother!” she laughs. “When she came to the Venice Film Festival, I said to her ‘watch it, when the film finishes everyone will come up to you!’”