Rosamund Pike film means big payday for rival Oxford college

Hollywood star Rosamund Pike has gone back to oxford. But the wadham graduate has chosen to give rival college Christ Church a bumper payday by shooting her new film there.

The college, one of the city’s most venerable, may be keen to earn money following its three-year battle to oust its controversial dean Martyn Percy.

Percy was the senior cleric and the head of college who finally left his position this year after reaching a settlement involving a substantial pay-off.

I can now reveal that Rosamund (right) and Brad Pitt were spirited in at night for an evening of filming.

My mole says that the pair, executive producers of new Netflix series The Three-Body Problem, based on the novel of the same name by liu Cixin, made the trip to oxford for just one night’s secret filming.

The shoot is thought to have clawed back a substantial chunk of the millions the college has spent in its dispute with the former dean.

‘ They came under the cloak of darkness, it was all very exciting,’ says my mole. ‘Rosamund and Brad were obviously hugely impressed with the incredible architecture and knew this was a venue that they wanted in the film.

‘It was so secret we didn’t even know the title of what was being filmed,’ my man in the sub fusc adds. ‘They did all the filming in a single night.’ As to how much Christ Church was rewarded for this nocturnal invasion, I’m told that the fees were significant.

Christ Church College was unable to furnish me with additional information yesterday, understandably, as A-level results meant it was their busiest day of the year.

The picturesque college numbers 13 British prime ministers among its alumni — and Albert Einstein — and was used for filming Harry Potter.

Pike earned a 2:1 in English literature from wadham — after taking a year away from oxford to gain stage experience in david Hare’s Skylight as well as in several Shakespeare productions.

By contrast, Pitt, now 58, was within weeks of graduating from the University of Missouri when the lure of Tinseltown proved too strong.