Early Life
Pike was born in Hammersmith, London, the only child of concert musicians/opera singers Caroline (née Friend) and Julian Pike. Her father is now a professor at the Birmingham Conservatoire. The family travelled across Europe until she was seven, following wherever her parents' performing career took them; as a result, she speaks fluent French and German. Pike won a scholarship to Badminton School, and while appearing in a production of Romeo and Juliet at the National Youth Theatre, was noticed by an agent who helped her embark upon a professional career.
After being turned down by every stage school she applied to, she gained a place to read English Literature at Wadham College, Oxford. She graduated with a 2:1 degree. While there, she studied under both Bernard O'Donoghue, the Whitbread prize-winning poet, and Robert J. C. Young, the eminent post-colonial theorist. She starred opposite Simon Woods in Pride and Prejudice. After taking a year off to pursue her acting career, garnering stage experience in David Hare's Skylight, Arthur Miller's All My Sons, and several plays by Shakespeare; she achieved an Upper Second class degree in 2001.
Read more about this topic: Rosamund Pike
Famous quotes related to early life:
“Many a woman shudders ... at the terrible eclipse of those intellectual powers which in early life seemed prophetic of usefulness and happiness, hence the army of martyrs among our married and unmarried women who, not having cultivated a taste for science, art or literature, form a corps of nervous patients who make fortunes for agreeable physicians ...”
—Sarah M. Grimke (1792–1873)