18 November 2018
Newsdesk
Rosamund Pike has opened up about the emotional impact of working with real refugees in new film A Private War.
The British actress portrays Marie Colvin, a journalist who worked as a foreign affairs correspondent for British newspaper The Sunday Times from 1985 until her death in 2012, in the biographical drama directed by Matthew Heineman.
Much of the movie was shot in Jordan, with Rosamund now sharing how she was able to meet with Syrians, Iraqis, Libyans and Sri Lankans who had fled to the nation during wartime and how their stories deeply influenced her performance.
"(For one scene set) in the besieged city of Homs (in western Syria) there was one basement where all the women and children who were sheltering from gunfire were huddling together, and we recreated that basement in our set in Jordan," she recalled during an interview with Collider. "And I walked into it and Matt said, 'Ninety per cent of these women are from Homs, for 90 per cent of them, this was their truth.' And (he) pointed out certain women that were prepared to tell their story and what I got was their truth and so the emotional impact of that was huge. It was a very, very blurred line between fiction and reality."
Rosamund went on to describe how she experienced many "confusing" emotions while speaking with the refugees and appreciated how Matthew, who is known for his documentary films like City of Ghosts, spent so much time talking to the locals.
"It changed the energy so much, because Matthew, coming from a documentary background, literally interviewed hundreds of people who were displaced, people from various parts of the conflict region we were covering," the 39-year-old said. "It was exciting, it was moving, I had so many confusing emotions during that, that it was quite troubling. And that happened again and again."
A Private War, which also stars Tom Hollander, Jamie Dornan, and Stanley Tucci, is now showing at U.S. cinemas. It is due to open in the U.K. on 1 February 2019.
