Wonder woman!
Rosamund Pike on playing two-time Nobel Prize-winning physicist Marie Curie in a new biopic
There are some roles that require actors to immerse themselves in the part. And for London-born film star Rosamund Pike (Gone Girl, James Bond thriller Die Another Day) playing two-time Noble Prize winner Marie Curie in Amazon Prime Video’s new one-off drama Radioactive was definitely one of them.
Based on Lauren Redniss’ graphic novel and adapted by screenwriter Jack Thorne (National Treasure, His Dark Materials, Kiri), the film follows the Polish-french chemist and physicist from the 1870s onwards to chronicle her scientific breakthroughs, her relationships and her struggle to make her voice heard in a man’s world.
But it’s also a love story about the romance between Marie and her husband, Pierre Curie (played by Maleficent: Mistress of Evil star Sam Riley). Together they changed the face of science for ever with their discovery of radioactivity.
Here, Rosamund, 41, reveals how she took night-time chemistry lessons for the role and why playing the courageous and ‘eccentric’ pioneer became all-consuming…
What interested you most about playing Marie Curie? She’s got all the qualities I admire – resilience, courage, bravery, and then she’s kind of eccentric, and I’m drawn to eccentric people. She had one of the finest minds, too, and she was so hard-working, which is such an inspiring trait. She put hours and hours of labour into her discoveries – hard, manual work and obviously the brainwork, too. She changed the face of the 20th century.
Did you know much about her life and work beforehand? Actually, I realised how little I knew! I didn’t learn about her when
I was in school and it blew my mind when I realised that the whole term ‘radioactivity’ was actually coined by Marie, and that she was the person who revealed that phenomenon to the world. I also didn’t know that she’d won two Nobel Prizes [in 1903 for physics and 1911 for chemistry; Marie Curie was the first woman to win a Nobel Prize, and the first person to win the prestigious award twice] or that she and her husband, Pierre Curie, had a daughter [the chemist and physicist Irène Joliot-curie] who also won a Nobel Prize. I think this film will make people say,
‘Wow, I had no idea what she did!’
Sounds like you did a lot of research into Marie and her life before taking on the roleé
Yes, I often use these roles as an excuse to learn about the real background, so I got a chemistry teacher and I had a sort of night school at home after my children went to bed and it was fun. I thought, ‘If I’m going to play her, I need to know what she knew.’
What did you discover about her marriage to Pierre Curie?
I learnt that Marie Curie was odd. She was a very direct person and she had no filter – and here was a man who found that charming and endearing. He totally understood her. I found the idea of them having that romance and the shared interests that led them to change the world together really intoxicating. Their marriage was something very precious. They were beautifully, truly in love, and we wanted that in our film.
Four years after Pierre died in a 1906 carriage accident, she had a love affair… It was a big scandal. After all her success, Pierre tragically died. Then some years later she had an affair with one of his students [physicist Paul Langevin] and this caused a huge scandal in French society and she was hounded by the press. She had a very colourful life, but she withstood these storms with
incredible dignity.
It sounds like you were totally immersed in the role…
I lived and breathed and felt her pain, difficulties, loneliness and obsession very deeply while making the film. It’s a challenge because it can be all-consuming. For those months, I thought more about Marie and her hopes, fears, wants and desires than I did about my own life!
RADIOACTIVE is previewed on pages 80-81
MARIE CURIE CHANGED THE FACE OF THE 20TH CENTURY