Rosamund Pike has spoken to Vulture about her role in Gone Girl, and what it took both emotionally – and physically – to get it right. Because, despite a few critics, the general consensus is that she totally nailed it.
‘I had to gain and lose weight for those scenes three times over! They scheduled around it, so I had two weeks each time for each fluctuation. It was quite intense. It was like turning your body into a chemistry lab, and I couldn’t escape it,’ she recalls. ‘I trained with a boxer. Anyone who is going to go into the ring will usually rest over their fighting weight, and then lean out to go into the ring.’
She felt slightly concerned about the effect on her body, and reckons that it’s probably healthier to gain and lose weight over a longer period of time – ‘as with a baby’.
While some critics have mused over whether Rosamund was the right choice to play Amy, we think she was absolutely spot on. It’s a complex role, and a lot of preparation went into it – weight and appearance aside: ‘There was always something to think about with Amy. I had to transform the obvious way, and then I had wigs, I had to do the schizophrenic weight-gain/loss, I had to change my voice... Not just change my accent,’ she went on to say. ‘Amy has specific different voices. Because there’s Diary Amy, and then there’s the other voice-over, where the vitriol comes out and you hear her critique of her own gender.’
READ MORE: Here’s The Real, Chilling Story Gone Girl Was Based On
Physically, too, every action on-camera would have to be deliberate and smooth because, in effect, Rosamund was playing a woman playing different women. ‘Amy has to have this precision to everything she does. So with me, it was this fluidity, this smoothness, even just getting into a car. Amy had to glide. [David Fincher] wouldn’t want Amy to drop her keys and fumble in the foot well. She’d have to slide in like a ballerina because she’s so self-aware of how she’s coming across. Even when there’s no one watching, she’s watching.’
Intense. But what does she think about the most famous passage in the book, that one critic dubbed the ‘Cool Girl Speech’? It’s the moment in the book, and the film, where Amy rips into those well-worn stereotypes of the Manic Pixie Dreamgirl (think: Natalie Portman in Garden State and Zoe Deschanel in, well, anything) aka what men expect their dream girlfriend to be. The girl who eats pizza but never gets bigger than a size 2, who drinks beer but never gets embarrassing-drunk.
‘I think most women identify with it, and that’s why the book was so successful because women find it sort of deliciously undeniable, something they recognise in themselves and their friends. And it’s something they’ve tried on,’ she says. ‘I’m not saying most people would try it on forever, but most people can identify at some point with having tried on other personas. It could be because you’re attracted to a guy. It could be because you meet a girl in school who you think is cool and you want to be her friend, so you take on her interests, what she’s into, and dress like her. We’re all on it.’
Rosamund doesn’t, however, fit neatly into a label. ‘I’d just stay with Complicated Girl. Honestly, after these past three days, I have no idea who I am any more. I have to go home! I just have to go home, get on the floor, and play with some Legos.’
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This article originally appeared on The Debrief.