GAH Rosamund Pike is so beautiful. You know what I think about too much? How weird it is that she’s not typecast permanently in period dramas and “English rose” roles. It’s strange that someone who looks like dictionary definition of “English aristocrat” plays so many Americans and rough-and-tumble types. Incidentally, I feel the same way about Michelle Dockery – she also has that haughty, aristocratic look. Rosamund covers the Dec/Jan 2019 issue of Town & Country to promote A Private War, the bio-pic of American journalist Marie Colvin. I think there’s a good chance Rosamund will be getting some big award nominations for this. You can read T&C’s cover story here. Some highlights:
Rosamund actually shrank to play Marie: The actress worked so hard to blend into the character she actually shrank— from hunching her shoulders to mimic Marie’s posture. “When I went for a medical examination after A Private War,” she says, “I was one and a half centimeters shorter.”
Her respect for war reporters: “It was an homage to her, but also an homage to journalists.”
On her hope for audiences after seeing A Private War: “I want people to care about journalism again.”
Her ordinary life with her partner & two sons: “I want to recreate the childhood that I had for my own children,” she says, adding that she tries to expose them to books and music and raise them with no sense of entitlement. When she and her family wander around London, they do it on the Tube. “People might recognize me, but I think they just see me as a mother trying to handle small kids on the subway.”
She gave birth to her second son early, in her mother’s apartment. “There was no time for pain medication, no time to get to the clinic, so I just let my body take over. I thought, If I can let my mind go somewhere else, my body will do the job.” Her son arrived healthy, but Pike believes her body absorbed the trauma and can recall it.
Her description of her second birth is going to give me nightmares. I know a lot of women forgo drugs and hospital births, but they make that decision ahead of time as part of their birthing plan. The idea that labor is happening so fast that you can’t even make it to the hospital and you just have to give birth where you are, with no drugs? Nightmare. As for caring about journalism… Town & Country even name-checks Donald Trump and his repeated fascistic statements that journalists are “the enemies of the people.” Journalism matters. Smart journalism matters. So I hope this movie is really good (the reviews are great).
Photos courtesy of Liz Collins for Town & Country, received from promotional T&C email.
She’s amazing in A Private War and she should win Best Actress but sadly this will not happen.
She has the oddest posture on that magazine cover, slooping, droopy shoulders but a straight neck and raised chin. it’s like she can’t decide if she wants to look haughty or apathetic.
I had a similar experience with my 2nd baby. 45 minutes of labor, start to finish. I may have asked my husband to shoot me when it became clear that no pain relief would be coming.
Two hours from the first contraction to his birth with my second son. Time to get to the hospital but no time for any pain meds. I’d had an epidural with my first and was completely unprepared for an unmedicated delivery. The word trauma fits.
This was me with my second too. No time for pain meds. At least I only had to push a couple of times. I don’t think I’d willingly forego the pain meds if I had another.
Seth Meyers told the story on-air how his 2nd son was born. His wife went into labor, they immediately left for the hospital, but she only made it as far as the lobby when the baby decided it was going to be born, right then and there! She gave birth on the lobby floor!
I. CAN. NOT. IMAGINE. THAT!!! lol.
Babies gonna come when babies wanna come; they don’t care where you are.
There are literally photos of Alexi on the lobby floor holding her newborn 😳
I remember that story!! I mean it’s NYC so the paramedics definitely got there fast. My nightmare would be if you lived out in the middle of nowhere and the closest hospital is over an hour away!
My grandmother gave birth to my father in the elevator of the hospital… I don’t know if she actually physically gave birth in it or if they managed to move her because I’ve never really gotten any other details.
Dad was driving Mom to the hospital, they stopped in front of the ER and someone came running out “YOU CAN’T PARK THERE!” Mom opened her car door and said “Yes, he can.” My younger sister was born outside, in an ambulance bay, in the middle of November. I think Mom said 2 hours from first contraction to delivery. This was her third child.
Did you hear Seth Meyer’s story? He was getting his wife into an uber to go to the hospital and she gave bith in the lobby of their apartment building en route from the apartment to the car. That was probably one of the craziest stories I heard.
LOL. I did not read far enough down before posting the same thing as you, @SM! Great minds… 😊
My mum delivered me in 20 min. She always says it was like to « go pooing . I was ready »
Babies do not care, yo. They come when they damn well want. My mother was fortunate that all of us waited until we got to the hospital, particularly my brother who decided to wrap the umbilical cord around his neck prior to birth.
My poor friend, on the other hand, had to go on bedrest in the last four weeks of her pregnancy. Her body went into false labor contractions in her eighth month…and then stayed there. To the point where her doctors forced the issue because they were afraid she’d go into active labor with too much exertion, and they couldn’t mess around with that birth since her son had a heart disorder that required immediate post-partum surgery. She wound up spending the last two weeks or so in the hospital. Scary stuff.
Nuchal cord isn’t a big deal 90% of the time. They just unloop it before the body is born.
That happened to one of my best friends with her 2nd. Luckily she lives around the corner from a firehouse; it’s maybe a 30 second drive away. Anyway, the birth was fine and she said she felt better afterward than she did when she had her first kid in the hospital.
Similar to a friend of mine, the baby suddenly wanted OUT! and she made it to reception as the baby was crowning and staff went into overdrive so she wouldn’t give birth there and then in public.
I think she is not constrained to the “period lady” because she has done smart decissions with her roles, after Sense and Sensibility, she chose not to dwell un period dramas. And she has more to offer than a fainting damsel … She is more than beautiful, with her face and eyes she can convey a great deal of emotion and she is quite chamaleonic.
I am a paediatrician and when I had my child, i waited as much as i could, because I didn’t want to be sent home, and I knew what was going on. So when I finally stepped into my hospital on a Sunday and festive, they told me the anesthesia had to wait…. All my previous chill dissapeared when faced with the perspective of a “epidural less” labor. I was lucky at the end, but half an hour more and it would have been another story…
My favorite line in “Pride and Prejudice” is when the mother says, “I knew she could not be so beautiful for nothing,” after Rosamund’s character gets engaged.
To me it is strange how Rosamund Pike tends to play somber and shy characters a lot, I`ve never seen her really smiling in movies. I once met her in London and she was crossing the street in Shoreditch, smiling to herself and looking giddy and glowing. She has perfect teeth 🙂
I want those dresses and I want that belt. And then I need a party.
I loved her in Pride and Prejudice (my favorite movie) and even in Gone Girl, where I thought she was very good.
She was SO.GOOD. in Hostiles with Christian Bale (his best performance to date I believe as well). She was just riveting to watch. I immediately watched the movie again – which I have never done.
Meh. I had my second with no pain medication. Honestly I felt it was a way better birth experience. If I ever had kids again I’d actively try to avoid any meds.
Rapid labor and a planned unmedicated delivery are not the same things at all. Meh.
lol exactly Not. The. Same. At. All!!
I agree! My second labor was fast and I waited too long to head to the hospital. Was taken by ambulance and my daughter was born 2 minutes after arriving. No drugs! It wasn’t as bad as I thought it would be!? I recovered so much faster than when I had an epidural. So for my third baby I also opted to forgo the epidural. No regrets!
Wow! What a birth story. She is so beautiful. I’m an old skool Pride and Prejudice fan, mainly because of Colin Firth, but I did prefer Rosamund’s take as Jane.
Same with my second. I pushed for eight minutes with her. What a whirlwind.
Same with my second. It’s called “precipitous labor” where a woman goes through all the stages of labor in under 3 hours. A lot of people remarked to me they’d love to experience that, but it was traumatic. We didn’t know if we were going to make it to the hospital and when we did the staff were freaking out because the room, Dr, nothing was ready. I was anemic afterwards and still go to a chiropractor to adjust the misalignment that occurred from it. It is nice to know that I’m not alone in this though.