‘Actually, sod that’
The past 12 months has been a watershed year for women - especially in the entertainment industry.
The Time’s Up and Me Too movements have seen a wave of high profile women in film and TV stand up and call out inappropriate and uncomfortable behaviour in the workplace.
Rosamund Pike is the latest high profile name to share her uncomfortable experiences, recalling being asked to strip down to her underwear during her audition for the James Bond film, Die Another Day when she was just 21 years old.
‘My first audition was for a Bond film and I remember them saying I was to drop my dress and appear in my underwear,’ the now 39-year-old explained in an interview on Amazon’s Audible Sessions. ‘On the day, I don’t know how I got the resolve and strength of mind, but I just thought “actually sod that, if they're gonna see me in my underwear, they better give me the job” so, I thought, “There's no way I'm going to take off a dress in the audition for this tape to be sent around Los Angeles and to be judged on that”’.
Clearly her stand made an impression, with Rosamund getting cast in the role as Bond girl Miranda Frost, starring opposite Pierce Brosnan, but according to Pike, the uncomfortable experiences didn’t stop there.
When asked to come in an evening dress, the actress wore a silk gown once belonging to her grandmother, but was reportedly told by the costume designer that they were thinking of something a little different.
'That's a very beautiful dress, but in Bond films we wear things a little more like this’, Pike recalled the costume designer telling her, holding up ‘three pieces of string’.
‘I realised I was in a completely different world and way out of my depth,’ she explained. ‘So, I put on this shimmering sheath, or whatever the order of the day was, but I didn't drop it.’
You go, Rosamund.
