Rosamund Pike: "Demanding gender equality is not asking for condescension for being a woman"

• Lauren Redniss comic.Marie Curie, love and radioactivity

Ever since she starred

in David Fincher's

'

', Rosamund Pike (London, 1979) has become an actress as perfectly master of her career as she is aware of the responsibility of being known.

Famous even.

Now she premieres '

', by

, where she plays the Polish scientist of the two Nobel laureates and says she has understood like never before the risks that the greatest of powers entails.

"No discovery is comparable to that of radioactivity capable of the best and the worst at the same time," she comments by way of a prologue to place the film and herself within this transparent world of perhaps global Hollywood.

With a degree in Literature from Oxford, she says she prefers Verdi over Wagner.

And before '

'than any other temptation.

Well that.

The film avoids presenting itself as a conventional 'biopic', it does not even emphasize the claim of a feminist nature ... Yes, that's right.

Its original title is 'Radioactivity' since the main argument is how we use scientific knowledge.

We are not talking about the life of a scientist but about her achievements.

What is relevant, in short, is responsibility.

Alfred Nobel was the discoverer of dynamite and the question that was asked was whether we can trust science.

That is the recurring question.

Let's look at the internet.

At first it is a great achievement that nobody disputes, but every day we see more clearly all the disaster that its misuse can cause. Marie Curie, in any case, was abused for the simple fact of being a woman.

100 years have passed, we have undoubtedly advanced, but the problem persists ... And I think the most important thing is to underline that Marie Curie, exactly like current feminism, did not ask for any kind of dispensation for being a woman.

She simply demanded respect as a scientist.

Much less apologized for it.

She demanded to be respected by her brain.

Demanding gender equality is not asking for condescension for being a woman.

Said like that, it seems obvious, but as it stands, it is not. In any case, Marie Curie had to be infinitely smarter than the men around her to get respected ... It's true.

The general assumption is that she couldn't be good enough because she was a woman.

And that overexertion is still a reality in many areas of life.

But even before that, you have to have a chance to prove yourself.

According to you, is there a long way to go? It takes a long time to end the status quo and if power has been and is in the hands of white men, they will continue to be determined that things remain the same.

However, it is true that right now everything is changing and that we have grown tired of waiting.

It is not about accepting the difference but about recognizing it.

And this change in attitude is what is active in movements like the MeToo or, more recently, with Black Lives Matter after the murder of George Floyd.

Who knows (laughs) maybe after the quarantine we will all be more aware.In a good part of his last works (I think of 'The correspondent' where he gave life to Marie Colvin) he has embodied female protagonists determined to change the world.

Do you think that these types of roles are still lacking in popular culture? We should start by claiming the role of a woman like Marie Curie in the complete Marvel superhero saga.

(Laughs) It is important that they become more and more frequent and are assumed as normal models like Curie or, in another vein, Wonder Woman.

The two, yes, they are superheroines just as valid for them or them.

The cinema also has a responsibility, like science itself, to fight against prejudice.

In that sense, cinema is also a bit radioactive.

Do you take it as a personal struggle? Not exactly, but it is difficult to find really relevant roles in female characters.

Many times you receive a script with the note that the protagonist is a strong, powerful character.

And then you read it and it's just an independent, hard-working, intelligent woman.

Having a paid job should not be an achievement for a woman, it should be a right.

As soon as a woman sits in a room surrounded by men, she is already a powerful woman.

And no, it's not.

I look for central characters with their own motivations and owners of their lives.

That does not mean that you renounce femininity, or being a woman.

It's not about trying to be a man, no.

Do you think it would be necessary to promote in some way, with a quota policy perhaps, that there were more women directors? Women are not educated to direct, to be responsible, and that has to change.

The creative capacities of women are never discussed, but their leadership capacities are.

And that, obviously, is unfair.

Young people have few references of directors and women in positions of power and that influences, of course.

I don't know if it influenced me, but

Nobody disputed them.

That should be normal.

Instead, they are still exceptions. Is that why you've worked with female directors like Amma Asante and now Marjane Satrapi? I love working with female directors because they are all different.

Marjane, for example, is like radioactivity itself, always unstable, provocative, unpredictable ... It is very difficult to find a director who adapts to any kind of assumed rule.

And that's good, but it also makes it clear that normalcy is far from being achieved. What did you learn from Marie Curie after making the film? You knew the basics.

About his two Nobel prizes.

But he did not know that he had discovered two new elements in the periodic table, nor the role it played in the First World War, nor, on the other hand, the wonderful and very modern marriage of equality and respect that he maintained with Pierre.

Nor did he know that his daughter won another Nobel Prize.

According to the criteria of The Trust Project

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