Rosamund Pike

Born in London, England in 1979, Rosamund Mary Elizabeth Pike was the sole child of Caroline (Friend) Pike, the classical violinist's mother, and Julian Pike, an opera singer dad. Both parents were extremely hard-working and she travelled extensively throughout Europe during her childhood. Pike attended Bristol's Badminton School and started acting at the National Youth Theatre. In a National Youth Theatre production of "Romeo and Juliet", she was first noticed and accepted by an agent. However, she continued her studies in Wadham College, Oxford, where she read English Literature, eventually graduating with an upper-second class honors degree.Pike has appeared in a variety of UK TV shows which included Wives and Daughters (1999) after which she made an impressive debut in feature films as the glacial beauty "Miranda Frost" in the James Bond film, Die Another Day (2002); when the film was released it was released at just 23. Although her debut film was a high-budget action movie The film work that followed was primarily in smaller, independent films, including Promised Land (2004), The Libertine (2004), (for which she was awarded the Best Supporting Actress award at The British Independent Film Awards), and Pride & Prejudice (2005) in the role of one of the Bennet daughters. Following the action movie, Doom (2006) and the thriller Fracture (2007), Pike made a brief foray into Hollywood film. But, she returned to films of a smaller scale with extraordinary performances in three films: An Education (2008) and Dagenham (2010), and Dagenham (2010) as well as the leading role with Paul Giamatti in Barney's Version (2010). In 2012, Pike portrayed the role of Andromeda in the sci-fi epic Wrath of the Titans (2012). Pike returned to action films as the lead actress alongside Tom Cruise in Jack Reacher (2012).