Rosamund Pike has claimed Hollywood "isn’t easy" for women and non-white actors.
The 37-year-old British starlet is enjoying the most successful period of her career but she insists life in the movie business in Los Angeles is "doubly testing" for actresses and black thespians to win parts and lead big-budget movies because there simply aren’t enough parts being written.
Speaking at the premiere of her new movie ‘A United Kingdom’ at the BFI London Film Festival on Wednesday (05.10.16), she said: "It’s not easy being a woman in this business … there aren’t as many roles. It’s also hard from an actor’s point of view to be a person of colour. It is fine to be the second lead, but it’s not always so easy to be the lead."
Pike – who won the Best Actress Empire award for her incredible performance in ‘Gone Girl’ – added that it was a "huge" milestone that black British female director Amma Asante got ‘United Kingdom’ made and she "deserves every success she gets" with the romantic drama.
Asante is the first black woman to direct the opening movie of the London Film Festival and speaking on the red carpet, she backed Pike’s comments and called for there to be "the same privilege" for women as given to men in Hollywood.
She said: "We are not a minority as women, we are 50 per cent of the population and we also play a large part in getting men to the cinema to watch these films that often times is with white men within a certain age bracket on screen, and it’s not to say women directors will always direct women’s stories but seeing the world through a female gaze from time to time shouldn’t be an odd thing, it shouldn’t be 1.4 per cent of the time. It’s getting better (for female directors) but it’s not good."
‘A United Kingdom’ tells the true love story of Sir Seretse Khama – the first president of Botswana played by David Oyelowo – and Ruth Williams (Pike), the London office worker he married in 1948 in the face of opposition from their families and the British government.
Rosamund Pike: Hollywood isn’t easy for women
