Rosamund Pike (born January 27, 1979) is a British actress. She is best known for playing bond girl Miranda Frost in Die Another Day (2002), and Jane Bennet in Pride and Prejudice (2005).
Pike is the only child of Caroline and Julian Pike, both musical performers. She attended Badminton School in Bristol before studying English Literature at Oxford (Wadham College).
Her time at Oxford was clearly very important to her and she has referred to it in several interviews as having played a useful role in her approach to acting. While there, she was friends with Chelsea Clinton, and was taught by both Bernard O'Donoghue, the Whitbread prize-winning poet, and Robert J.C. Young the eminent post-colonial theorist. An able scholar, she achieved a First Class result in her first year examinations (known as Moderations at Oxford) and, after taking a year out to pursue her career, returned to complete her degree in 2001, gaining an Upper Second.
She is a skilled cellist, and speaks fluent German and French, as well as her native English. She currently lives in London's West End.
Pike was spotted by an agent in a production of Romeo and Juliet at the National Youth Theatre. She also garnered experience in student productions (including David Hare's Skylight, Arthur Miller's All My Sons, and several plays by Shakespeare) before embarking on a professional career.
Pike played roles on British television even before graduating from Oxford, such as Celia in A Rather English Marriage (1998), at the age of 19, and Lady Harriet Cumnor in Wives and Daughters (1999). She played the lead role of Fanny in the remake of Love in a Cold Climate (2001), a BBC mini-series based on two Nancy Mitford novels (The Pursuit of Love and Love in a Cold Climate). She appeared as Sarah Beaumont in an episode of the series Foyle's War.
In 2003 she played the role of the blonde in Hitchcock Blonde by Terry Johnson in London's West End, for which she had to appear naked on stage ? la Nicole Kidman in The Blue Room.
Pike became known to a wider audience in Die Another Day (2002), portraying Miranda Frost; a rogue MI-6 agent originally assigned to aid James Bond. She later presented the special show Bond Girls Are Forever and the BAFTA tribute to the James Bond series.
She played Elizabeth Malet in The Libertine (2005) co-starring Johnny Depp, which won her "best supporting actress" at the 2005 British Independent Film Awards.
In 2005 she played Rose in The Promised Land, a film about Israel, and starred as the scientist Dr. Samantha Grimm in the cinematic adaptation of the computer game Doom. She also played Jane, the elder sister of Elizabeth (played by Keira Knightley) in the 2005 release Pride and Prejudice.
She has just finished filming Devil You Know (for which she received no fee) due for release in 2006.
