In the dimly lit, wood-panelled confines of the Jacobean Boston Manor House in Brentford, Rosamund Pike and her interviewer find themselves within ‘James Clitherow III’s strongroom,’ meticulously designed by the former owner for secure document storage.
Pike plays Elspeth Catton, the mother of Felix. Grazia Daily says it’s a wickedly funny turn, but movingly brittle too.
‘Elspeth is a gift of a character to play because she is so self-obsessed and funny because of that and vain and has a view of herself that only she holds. And she’s also kind of fabulous as well,’ says Pike.
It was, she says, enormous fun to film and she pounced at the opportunity to work with the ‘so smart and funny’ Emerald Fennell.
A long Career
Born in 1979 in London, England, Rosamund Mary Elizabeth Pike, the sole child of classical violinist Caroline (Friend) and opera singer Julian Pike, embarked on a childhood of European travels due to her parents’ professions.
Educated at Badminton School in Bristol, England, Pike delved into acting at the National Youth Theatre, catching the attention of an agent during a production of “Romeo and Juliet.”
Despite her burgeoning acting career, she pursued higher education at Wadham College, Oxford, where she studied English Literature and earned an upper second-class honors degree, showcasing a harmonious balance of academic and artistic pursuits.
Revolving around class, ambition and privilege
Saltburn explores themes of class, ambition, and privilege, making it a hot topic for discussion. Pike comments on playing upper-class characters, saying they are ‘amazing to play because they are often emotionally stunted because of having been at boarding schools and having massive privilege and a strange lack of care at the same time’.
Despite her background and education, Pike identifies with stories about outsiders and admits to feeling out of place at times, recalling a moment of frustration in a poetry class where analysis overshadowed emotional interpretation.
A review
A review of the movie on Roger Bert says like that 2020 film, “Promising Young Woman, which earned Fennell an Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay among its five nominations, “Saltburn succeeds in slashing our expectations about how people are supposed to behave in polite society.”
“This is her particular spin on an oft-told tale. She holds up a magnifying glass to a rarefied world and exposes the truth of human nature: its transactional tendencies, its queasy mix of desire and disposability.”
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