Hedd Girl

Sorry, I completely forgot about the interview,” Rosamund Pike says in those unmistakably clipped and measured tones of hers.

“I was in the middle of a really good book, and totally lost track of time.”

Rosamund Pike is the girl of the moment, and has been ever since she betrayed Piers Brosnan in Die Another Day.

But since her time as a Bond girl, Rosamund, 31, has gone on to bigger and better things, including starring in 2010’s Oscar-nominated An Education, The Libertine with Johnny Depp and Pride and Prejudice, as older sister to Kiera Knightley.

But what does she want to talk about? Oxford of course.

Because this is where she let her hair down as a student at Wadham and she enjoys reminiscing about her days here.

“In the third year I had a boyfriend with a car,” she laughs. “He used to take me out to The Trout and Blenheim Palace for picnics. But as I was at Wadham, my local was The Kings Arms and The White Horse.”

So will she revisit her old haunts when she comes back next week?

“You bet, I’ll be off to The Covered Market for a sandwich. What’s that little café called upstairs? Georgina’s – yes that’s it,” she says pleased.

Rosamund could have dropped out of university all together, being so in demand even then for work. So was it a close call?

“No, I wasn’t tempted to give up on university. I always wanted to go to Oxford and now I’m really pleased I did because I’m feeling the benefits. I made such an interesting variety of friends there who are all coming into their own now. But when I was there I was so busy and always rushing up to London all the time, I didn’t really have time to appreciate it.”

So how did she manage? “Well it was really hard work. But the main thing is that you’re 18 and you have to be self-disciplined. And you have to get used to being alone and to time management which are all adult skills. I was terrible at it,” she laughs. “So I was always writing my essays the night before they were due in.”

Currently in the throes of Hedda Gabler, an Ibsen play coming to the Oxford Playhouse from Monday, which is receiving rave reviews, Rosamund is well entrenched in her character. But while she gives her all to every role, she remains remarkably undiva-esque.

Mention the reviews and she says: “I hear they are good but I never read them.” Why not? “Well if they hate you it’s horrible and if they like you it might make you self-conscious about what you do on stage.

“But Hedda has nearly sold out in Oxford which is nice,” she adds.

I point out that probably has more to do with her than the play, which horrifies her. ”I’m sure it’s because it’s Ibsen,” she says carefully. “No one would go to see something just because it has Rosamund Pike in it, would they? Unless it’s to do with the red dress I wear in all the posters, but sadly I don’t wear that during the play so I hope people won’t be disappointed.”

Rosamund has already had to forego both the Oscars and the Baftas this year for Ibsen, but doesn’t see it as a sacrifice. “Well this could go to the West End for three months so I’m very, very lucky really because there is so much alchemy in this production,” she says.

If you haven’t seen the reviews, the critics are praising Rosamund for reinterpreting Hedda brilliantly.

“Oh that’s nice,” she says genuinely surprised “That’s all you can wish for really, that’s what every actor dreams about. But as I hadn’t seen Hedda Gabler before, I didn’t have anything to base it on.

“It’s the translation that’s important, and this one, which was done in the 70s, is full of subtlety and wit. As for the character, you just chip away at it until it yields up and rewards you, but I’m still discovering clues to Hedda all the time. She has a very violent sexuality and I think sometimes she wishes she was a boy.

“So to some women Hedda has got it all, a big house, a baby on the way and she’s just been on honeymoon for six months, while others give her short shrift and wonder what’s wrong with her.

“But yes it is a very intense part and quite exhausting, I charge towards self destruction every night on stage.”

Rosamund is also enjoying her recent initiation into comedy – her part in An Education proving winningly humorous.

“I think people have woken up to something new,” she tells me happily.

So did she feel typecast until then, I ask, with Bond’s ice-cold Miranda Frost setting the scene?

“I didn’t believe in typecasting when I first started out because at the beginning you think you are a multi-faceted person and feel you are very complicated,” she giggles at the memory. “And then you turn round and think, ‘but I keep playing people who are all the same.’ “But then things do open up, and my character in An Education didn’t need to be funny. If she had been, maybe they would have cast someone else,” she says, before adding, “but then I haven’t seen it because I don’t watch myself on screen.”

So is Rosamund as modest about her red carpet appearances, or does she enjoy making an effort and flaunting her bewitching beauty?

“I love the red carpet stuff,” she says, “if you have time to prepare for it. But I don’t have a stylist or anything, so it can be quite a pressure because people really care what you wear and mark you out of 10 these days. And when Die Another Day came out I was completely unprepared and felt very exposed,” she admits. “But of course I rushed out and bought Hello! magazine like everyone else last week to see what they all wore to the Oscars,” she says unexpectedly.

Next up, Rosamund has a couple of films coming out (Barney’s Version with Dustin Hoffman and Made In Dagenham with Bob Hoskins and Miranda Richardson), and two more in the bag, give or take Hedda’s success in the West End.

So it must be great to have so much choice as an actress? “Yes it’s exciting to have options," she says. "But we work bloody hard for it.”

Hedda Gabler opens at the Oxford Playhouse on Monday. Call the box office on 01865 305305.