Rosamund Pike: A theatre girl at heart

by BAZ BAMIGBOYE
Last updated at 23:14 13 September 2007

Rosamund Pike may be known to most people for her big screen roles, but she is more than happy to earn a basic salary treading the boards.

The actress is hoping to do a new play in London at the end of next year or early in 2009.

It won't be in the next six months, because she'll be in Los Angeles with her fiance, the director Joe Wright, while he's shooting his new movie, The Soloist, with Jamie Foxx.

At least if she waits a year, the actress may get a pay rise.

The actors' union Equity has been pressing theatrical producers to establish a new basic performance wage for stage shows: up from £380 to £550 a week.

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Rosamund Pike may be known to most people for her big screen roles, but she is more than happy to earn a basic salary treading the boards

There are many points still to be thrashed out, Rosamund said, such as whether that fee would be for eight performances a week or if producers would insist on nine shows.

Rosamund, who recently did a successful run in Gaslight at the Old Vic, told me that she would be happy if she could do a play a year.

She was in Toronto where her movie Fugitive Pieces - co- starring Stephen Dillane, Ed Stoppard and Rade Serbedzija - opened the film festival.

Based on the Anne Michaels novel about a man who finds it difficult to sustain relationships with women because of the horrors he witnessed during World War II, the movie is a compelling exploration of survival and the power of doing good.

It is obviously not a box office natural, yet festival audiences liked its poetic nature.

"Sometimes it's good to be quiet in this world of noise," novelist Ms Michaels told me.

During one memorable scene, Rosamund wears red shoes, so I was amused to notice she paid her own quiet homage to the film by wearing fire-engine red Christian Louboutin high heels to the gala.