Loved the Gone Girl movie?  

We’ve teamed up with 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment to offer one lucky couple an all-expenses paid mini-break in Sydney. Just purchase a copy of the best-selling novel by Gillian Flynn through Booktopia, for your chance to win! Scroll down for full details.

But for now, check out our interview with Academy-award nominee, Rosamund Pike.

GONE GIRL is now available on Blu-ray, DVD & Digital HD.

An interview with Gone Girl star Rosamund Pike

An accomplished and well-respected actress previously best known for supporting roles, Rosamund Pike makes the leap to movie star with her incredible performance in Gone Girl, David Fincher’s adaptation of Gillian Flynn’s bestselling novel.

As the title character, she disappears on the morning of her fifth wedding anniversary and the finger of suspicion points to her husband, Nick (Ben Affleck). The film peels back the layers of their marriage in a complex and gripping tale of deceit, betrayal and murder.

Congratulations on a terrific performance…
Thank you. I feel if anyone ever says that it’s as much David as it is me. I feel he totally guides the building of the character. It’s definitely our sort of a combined vision, the character – plus obviously Gillian’s creation. But you can only do it when you’ve got a good director, can’t you? When you deal with a character that’s this complex and you’re obviously having to dig into some darker bits of your soul, you just want to be with a director who’s going to respect that and hold it and not betray you in any way.

What did you do to prepare for the role?
I worked with a boxer, but mainly because playing Amy at different stages there’s weight fluctuations. I had to gain and lose 12 pounds three times during the course of the film. And obviously a boxer is someone who’s used to resting above their fighting weight and then dropping weight to go into the ring. It was really difficult and really not easy using your body as a chemistry lab.

David wanted to check that I wasn’t frightened to explore anger, explore some of the darker sides. I suppose he wants to make sure that you’re happy to check your vanity at the door. Probably for both Ben [Affleck] and I, really. And go where the character needed to go. He was very helpful when we were working on Amy’s voice, ‘cause she is obviously American and a very specific type of American – that East Coast, educated, quite light voice. She actually has a slightly higher pitch voice than I do.

What do you like about Fincher’s films?
I like the way I’m asked to examine humanity and asked to examine people. And I feel he’s just always illuminating, often in a funny way, about how people really behave. Not just about what they’re trying to achieve in a scene, but sort of the tiny subtleties of how human beings work and manipulate each other. He seems to always manage to illuminate that. The message of this film is sort of: what do we do to each other? And I feel that’s sort of been what Fincher’s been about for a long time. He always illuminates something extra. In a scene that’s simply about one thing, he’ll make sure that another dimension comes in or you get a sense of some history. There’s a reason for the large number of takes and the way we would work on a scene for a long time. He’s adding layers all the time.

Did you read the book before shooting?
I read the book when I started talking to David. I found it very funny and cleverly observant. And I felt it was really about something I hadn’t seen – there were ideas that I’d never seen articulated in that way. Like the way this idea of the ‘cool girl’. Like Amy talks about it in the film: the idea that the modern woman wants to be the cool girl. She wants to be the girl that every guy wants. And that doesn’t necessarily mean being true to herself. That means putting on a sort of disguise. And there’s no definitive cool girl. The cool girl is whatever that particular man desires in a woman. If he’s a sort of the hipster artist, you know, she’ll be going to rare, out of the way warehouse shows and listening to very rare cut vinyl from 1982 or something. And if he’s a petrol head, she’ll be watching Formula One on TV and learning about classic cars or something. And that’s maybe not true to her, but she’ll happily try it on in order to attract a mate. Usually people laugh ‘cause they recognize truth in it.

Have you ever fallen into trying to be the ‘cool girl’?
Yes. I don’t necessarily think there’s something sinister about it. I mean, it can be sinister if you’re constantly acting. And I think I’m generally pretty wary of acting in a relationship, because it’s what I do for a living. I have to be pretty damn sure that the person who I’m with knows who I am. I mean, that is where I feel secure is when I know that I am known. Because I think I spend my whole life feeling like I’m actually unknown by most of the people who are trying to know me, like people like you. When you’re with someone, it’s very important that they really get who you really are. So I’m pretty wary of that. But purely because I do it for a living.

Do you think Gone Girl will propel you to a new level of recognition?
I have no idea. Luckily I’ve been around the block and I’ve had a share of success and a share of disappointment. I really know how this business works now. It takes a long time to really figure it out. And I can feel that there’s an interest right now that there wasn’t three years ago. But I’m also equally aware that that can just go away like that. I’m quite a realist in that respect.

Do you ever regret starting your film career in a Bond movie? Did that hinder you?
I don’t think it can be a regret ‘cause I didn’t know any better. I didn’t know anything about the film industry. I didn’t know how you’re accountable for your choices. I didn’t understand any of that. I thought that everything thrown at me was a fun adventure. I didn’t really realize that how judgmental people are.

You know, I was doing Pride And Prejudice, which is obviously a critically acclaimed and really excellent film, and then some studio came and offered me an action movie based on a video game [Doom]. And I thought that was so funny and so odd that I thought, well, that sounds just fun. I didn’t have the canniness to understand that was a really bad move right after you do something really great like Pride And Prejudice. I didn’t realize how it all added up.

The only difficult thing about Bond is that the image is so indelible. You know what I mean? It’s just so powerful. Historically I think a lot of people have thought that Bond girls are not actresses – that’s just who you were, who I was. And at that age, it certainly wasn’t. I was just back from backpacking having finished university, not really knowing quite how to go about the next bit of life. I went to the audition in a cardigan and with a suntan having literally just got back a few days before. It couldn’t have been further from the image of Miranda Frost that then became the thing that everybody saw. It was very odd. And I still think that that image is kind of what people see. Sometimes I realize that people are still looking at that.

When did you decide to become an actress?
I always knew. I knew that it was just a need to do it. But I didn’t ever think about film – it wasn’t even on my radar. I thought I’d be a theater actress, ‘cause that’s what I knew. And I just knew that that’s where I belonged. It was like knowing who your family is. ‘Cause I never thought I belonged anywhere. I never felt right sort of socially or in any of the worlds I was put in, I never felt right at school. I never felt right at university. I never felt like I fitted in. And yet when I went into the theater, I fitted in.

Amy is a very complex character – did it feel like you’d signed up for three roles at the same time?
I think everybody’s more than one thing. You’ve got a professional self you bring to these things, don’t you? You probably aren’t exactly showing everything. It’s just rare that you get a film that allows you to see all the different sides. It’s very boring if you watch a film – and we frequently do – where you watch a film and you think, ‘Okay, I know who this character is and then we’re going to have the scene where we’re asked to feel a little bit more about them, feel sympathy and there’s gonna be some scene where they tell us about their some family tragedy…’ You just sort of know how films operate. And in this one I don’t think you ever quite know how it’s going to be played out. With Amy, you just don’t know where she’s going. We like to think we’ve got a hold of somebody. And then she just blows it out of the water. That’s great fun.

How did you shake off the character after shooting Gone Girl?
I have a small son, which does help for. And David is not someone who really lets the neuroses happen. You know, we don’t have the hardest job in the world, let’s be frank. We have a very lucky, privileged job where we get to do what we love. We get to tell stories for a living. There is fear involved, but we’re not in imminent danger. We’re not in a job where we’re actually risking our lives. You have to have a healthy attitude towards it.

I think if there’s any difficulty, it’s the fact that you can never say the job is done. You don’t know when you’ve got to the end. You never get the satisfaction of completion. Because the possibilities are endless. But I think David has a pretty healthy attitude. I mean, I’m sure he’s as passionate however much he sort of plays it cool, you’ll occasionally get glimpses of his just unbounded passion for cinema. You see the little boy who was nine years old and saw Rear Window with his dad and you know that he’ll go home from set and be thinking about it nonstop and wanting to know how to make it better – as we all are. But you have to sort of realize that have to leave it behind and you have to move on.

Grab a copy of Gone Girl here

Gone Girl

by Gillian Flynn

THE ADDICTIVE No.1 BESTSELLER THAT EVERYONE IS TALKING ABOUT

Who are you? What have we done to each other?

These are the questions Nick Dunne finds himself asking on the morning of his fifth wedding anniversary, when his wife Amy suddenly disappears. The police suspect Nick. Amy’s friends reveal that she was afraid of him, that she kept secrets from him. He swears it isn’t true. A police examination of his computer shows strange searches. He says they weren’t made by him. And then there are the persistent calls on his mobile phone.

So what really did happen to Nick’s beautiful wife?

To mark the Blu-ray & DVD release of Gone Girl on February 4, we’re offering one lucky couple the chance to win an all-expenses paid mini-break in Sydney.

Order Gone Girl by February 16th and go in the draw to win a trip for two to Sydney for two nights, worth $1880!

Details:

Check into the Menzies Hotel – centrally located and within minutes to the city’s iconic harbour.

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Package for 2 people includes….

• Return flights
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Grab a copy of Gone Girl here

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