After earning an Oscar nomination for her chilling portrayal of maybe-sociopath Amy Dunne in David Fincher’s Gone Girl, Rosamund Pike has landed another role that may be worthy of her formidable talent. The actress has signed on to star opposite Jon Hamm in Brad Anderson’s political thriller High Wire Act, which boasts a script by The Bourne Identity screenwriter Tony Gilroy.
Set in 1980s Beirut, the thriller will follow a former U.S. diplomat named Mason Skiles (Hamm) who is called back into action in order to prevent the murder of a former colleague from the group that may be responsible for his own family’s death. Pike will take on the role of a CIA field agent working undercover at the American embassy, who makes it her mission to keep Mason alive and ensure his top-secret mission goes off without a hitch.
This is just one of many promising projects in the works for Pike, who shot to the top of every studio’s wishlist after Gone Girl. She’s next starring opposite David Oyelowo in A United Kingdom, a racial drama directed by Belle breakout helmer Amma Asante, about Botswana’s first president, Seretse Khama, whose marriage to a white woman in 1948 sparked outrage in his country and around the world.
Additionally, Pike has joined the cast of action-thriller The Bends opposite Joel Kinnaman and will take on a pivotal role in the star-studded WWII political spy thriller HHHH, being directed by The Connection‘s Cédric Jimenez.
With the furious accumulation of talent on High Wire Act, it’s not saying much to note that we’re expecting big things from the thriller. Gilroy hasn’t written a script since 2012’s The Bourne Legacy, which he also directed, but the scribe has a long-standing history of delivering terrifically tense and intelligent stories (see: State of Play, Duplicity, Michael Clayton). And when you add in Anderson, helmer of The Machinist and The Call, the pic’s potential seems sky-high.
