Rosamund Pike Says She’s ‘Bewildered’ by Love for Her ‘Saltburn’ Role

When Rosamund Pike sat down to tea with Emerald Fennell to discuss “Saltburn,” the filmmaker’s follow-up to her Oscar-winning “Promising Young Woman,” she ordered coffee. Fennell asked if she was going to drink it black, to which Pike stated that she was going to add milk. Recalls Pike, “So she said, ‘Oh, thank God. I think people who have their coffee black have no love in their life.’ And I just thought, ‘Okay, first test passed.’”

Pike had already read the script her agent described as “pretty delicious,” a decadent tale of obsession and excess that finds young Oxford student Oliver (Barry Keoghan) ingratiating himself into the family of classmate Felix (Jacob Elordi). Fennell wanted to offer Pike the role of Lady Elspeth Catton, Felix’s wildly out of touch mother who loves to take in charity cases — in addition to Oliver, her friend “Poor Dear” Pamela (Carey Mulligan) is crashing at the titular manor for the summer after breaking up with a “malignantly ugly” Russian billionaire.

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Pike has long excelled at playing morally questionable characters we nonetheless root for, such in her Oscar nominated turn in “Gone Girl” or her Golden Globe-winning role in “I Care a Lot.” While Elspeth is more clueless than conniving, Pike continually steals scenes by saying the most horribly insensitive things — and we love her for it.

As “Saltburn” hits Amazon Prime, Variety spoke with Pike about finding empathy for her character, improvising as Elspeth and what a spin-off with Mulligan could look like.

Are you surprised by how much people are loving Elspeth?
I’m totally astonished! I’m bewildered. I sort of don’t know what to do with it. I’ve seen people on Instagram quoting lines and playing clips and also doing their own edits – putting Elspeth together with other characters I’ve played. I think in our filtered, cagey world where everyone’s being so cautious, it’s nice to see someone unfiltered. She’s in a bubble, nobody exists except people in her orbit so she can say whatever she wants without consequence. She doesn’t exist in the real world.

You shot at the actual estate featured in the movie. I imagine that has to help with the character.
Yes, because it became mundane to us. It was important we not treat it with reverence or awe or like it was a museum. It’s an amazing, truly astonishing house; it has 179 rooms! And they let us just run around in these priceless rooms. And it’s not open to the public — they don’t use it for filming or events.

So why were you allowed to shoot there?
I think it’s Emerald’s charm. Her energy is very infectious, and she has this charisma that tells you you’re going to be a part of something special.

I know your characters aren’t around for a sequel, but I’d love to see a prequel with you and Carey Mulligan’s “Poor Dear” Pamela.
I would do it in a heartbeat. I love Carey so much — she makes me laugh with just her expressions. I’d love to tell the story of their friendship. Or how about Elspeth going to Moscow to rescue her from the malignant Russian. That could be a movie.

I would think one of the hardest parts of working with this cast would be not laughing.
It was hard, especially with some of the improvs people would come up with. There was a whole scene that Jacob and I did about his ex-girlfriend who committed suicide after he dumped her. “Well, of course she did, darling. How could she bear to live after you?” Then there was a time when I asked if a new girlfriend was stable, and he said yes. I said something like, “Oh, good. Because one suicide can be chic, but two is unbecoming.” I’m not normally a great improviser but with Elspeth, somehow, I could just sort of hear her. I knew who she was.

Elspeth is obviously clueless, but do you think she’s a bad person?
I don’t. I think she’s trapped. She’s unable to express herself in any kind of real way. She’s not able to engage emotionally. She’s an unmaternal mother — I hardly say anything to either child. That’s why she needs an outsider, somebody she doesn’t have to engage with as a family.

Is that why she’s drawn to Oliver?
Well, that and pity. She just wants to feel she is a good person, some sort of benevolent goddess who can cast her pity and gaze on some lesser. She’s very caring until you don’t interest her anymore.

She also endures some unspeakable tragedy.
And she’s devastated. She just doesn’t have any language for expressing grief. She seems cold-hearted because she’s talking about lunch after her child dies, but it’s not that at all. She’s seen the abyss, she’s already in denial. She’s been completely obliterated — emotionally and mentally — and she’s trying to hold it together. It’s a very English thing. The world is falling apart, but lunch still exists. And you have to hold on to what exists.

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