Rosamund Pike has boldly declared she once starred in “one of the worst films ever made”.
The British actor has one Golden Globe, an Emmy and an Oscar nomination to her name, but according to the Gone Girl star, her career was almost stopped in its tracks by a box office flop so “catastrophic” she feels lucky to have been hired again.
After making her big screen debut in Bond film Die Another Day, and then appearing in Joe Wright’s Pride & Prejudice adaptation, playing Bennet sister Jane, Pike was offered a role in 2005 video game adaptation Doom.
"When I was making Pride & Prejudice, and I was having great fun in my cornfields in my bonnet, I get a call to be in an action franchise," she told How to Fail with Elizabeth Day podcast.
"They were making a cinema version, a narrative version of the video game Doom. And I think in my bonnet, in my field of hay bales, 'Yeah, I can do anything. I can jump on this hay bale in my crinoline, so I can certainly go and kill some zombies on Mars.'"
The sci-fi horror film, following marines who encounter demon-like creatures on a facility on Mars, was originally prepped with Ray Winstone in the lead role, but Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson stepped in when Winstone was forced to drop out. At the time, Johnson was far away from the Hollywood titan he is today, having only starred as the lead in 2002’s The Scorpion King and Walking Tall (2004).
Pike, who is in a long-term relationship with businessman Robie Uniacke, continued: "So suddenly I'm in this film with the Rock, and I realise how utterly ill-equipped I am to be an action star.
She said that the production was filled with "macho guys" who loved the Doom video game, recalling: "There were weights on the set. Every time a gun was brought out, it was kind of like a holy relic for the Doom fans. I was just out of my comfort zone, out of my league, out of my depth."
The film, directed by Andrzej Bartkowiak, flopped at the box office upon its release, grossing just $58.7m (£43.8m) from a budget of between $60m (£44m) to $70m (£52.2m). A second live-action version of the game titled Doom: Annihilation, was released direct-to-DVD in 2019.
Bartkowiak was a long-time cinematographer for films including Terms of Endearment (1983) and Speed (1994), before pivoting to action film director in the 2000s. His filmmaking credits include Romeo Must Die (2000), Exit Wounds (2001) and Cradle 2 the Grave (2003).
Pike herself branded Doom “an absolute bomb”, adding: “I mean, I probably could have ended my career. It was just probably one of the worst films ever made. I mean, it was a catastrophe. You get the sense like you're lucky to have survived that one."
The actor, who won a Golden Globe for her role in black comedy I Care a Lot in 2021, previously criticised the audition process for 2002 Bond film Die Another Day, in which she played undercover MI6 agent Miranda Frost.
She told Harper’s Bazaar UK. that she refused to strip down to her underwear after being asked to do so. “In the Bond audition, I was asked to unzip and drop the dress I was wearing, to just stand there in underwear,” Pike said. “And I thought, ‘Well, no, I’ll be doing that if I get the part. I won’t be doing that now.’ I don’t know what possessed me.”
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