On The Frontline

Her portrayal of intrepid war reporter Marie Colvin taught actress Rosamund Pike some valuable life lessons. Here, she tells Martha Hayes about overcoming fear, embracing female anger and knowing your worth

Rosamund Pike is looking at me suspiciously.

‘What are you doing?’ she enquires, as I tap into the interview questions on my iPad. ‘Are you playing solitaire?’ We both laugh when I realise that yes, that’s exactly what it looks like. For the record, I’m not, but top marks to Pike for her journalistic eye for detail.

Inquisitive, tenacious and disarmingly direct, the 39-year-old actress would make an excellent reporter. It stands her in particularly good stead playing the iconic lead role in A Private War, which pays tribute to Marie Colvin, the legendary Sunday Times war correspondent whose career successfully spanned 30 years until her tragic death during the bombardment of Homs, Syria in 2012. Not since the critically acclaimed Gone Girl (2014), which won Pike an Oscar nomination for her chilling portrayal of Amy Dunne, has there been this level of buzz around a film she has starred in. Role of a lifetime is an understatement.

The remarkable feature debut of documentary maker Matthew Heineman follows Colvin for the last ten years of her life at the forefront of conflicts in Sri Lanka (where Colvin famously lost sight in her left eye in a blast, and continued to work wearing an eyepatch), Iraq, Libya, Afghanistan and Syria. In our post-truth world, Colvin’s story resonates hugely and alongside the obligatory press commitments and premieres, Pike recently found herself interviewed by world-renowned correspondent and news anchor Christiane Amanpour.