Actress Rosamund Pike on gruesome, gruelling Gone Girl

Rosamund Pike reveals the throat-cut scene was shot 36 times with 450 gallons of fake blood
Lady in red: Rosamund Pike on shoot (Picture: Mario Testino exclusively for Vanity Fair)
Miranda Bryant6 January 2015
The Weekender

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Rosamund Pike has revealed filming Gone Girl was her most gruelling on-set experience to date - with one scene involving 36 takes, 36 pairs of underpants and 450 gallons of fake blood.

The actress has been nominated for a Golden Globe for her portrayal of Amy Dunne in the film adaptation of Gillian Flynn’s best-selling novel, which also stars Ben Affleck.

In one of the most gruesome moments her character cuts the throat of former boyfriend Desi Collings, played by Neil Patrick Harris, during a sex scene.

Pike said she and Harris rehearsed the scene for three days before shooting. It took 36 takes, using 36 bed sheets and 36 pairs of underpants, with the set being remade and the actors washed clean of the fake blood each time.

Gruelling: Rosamund Pike said 450 gallons of blood was used for Gone Girl

She told Vanity Fair: “I spent more time in front of the camera on that film than in my entire career to date, because he’s shooting five to six hours of footage a day, and over a hundred days shooting - that mounts up.”

The thriller, set in the US, centres around Pike’s Amy and her husband Nick, played by Affleck. Pike, 35, said director David Fincher asked her to study the facial expressions of the late Carolyn Bessette Kennedy, the former Calvin Klein publicist who was married to John F. Kennedy Jr.

She said she tried to “own that body language, the self-protective seductiveness, head down, hair falling”, adding: “I couldn’t really read her face, and so I tried to use that quality. You meet Amy, she smiles, but her eyes are always scanning you, assessing, seeing if you can play the game, surprised and pleased when you score a point, feeling you might after all be worthwhile. It is not a relaxing way to live.”

Pike, who recently gave birth to her second child, said she had received more attention since the film’s release, explaining some are thrown by her living a normal life in London. She said: “I went into this lovely Spanish shop and the girl said, ‘Has anyone ever told you you look just like the girl in Gone Girl?’, and I said, ‘Well, that’s me’.

Cover star: Rosamund graces the February issue of Vanity Fair (Picture: Mario Testino exclusively for Vanity Fair)

“And then she just looked at me with this deepest look of suspicion. And I said, ‘I’m pregnant, so I look a bit different, and I’m English’.

“And she’s like, ‘But why are you here?’ And I said, ‘Well, I’m from here’.And it was like, ‘You should not be buying cold cuts in a restaurant in Soho!’

“Once you’re 50ft tall and in the public’s imagination, it’s as if you’ve become an alien being. The public doesn’t want you to be real.”.

Vanity Fair is on sale this Friday January 9. www.vanityfair.com

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