Pike's peaking: Rosamund sees action in 'Reacher'

Pike's peaking: Rosamund sees action in 'Reacher'

British actress Rosamund Pike has quietly become the woman who gives blockbusters their brains.

The beauty who co-stars with Tom Cruise in “Jack Reacher,” which opened last Friday, has previously busted chops as a sexy villainess in the 2002 James Bond flick “Die Another Day” and faced off against the Rock in “Doom.”

Earlier this year, she enticed the ancient world as Andromeda in the myth-merizing action sequel “Wrath of the Titans.”

“I’ve had tremendous opportunities to work with some wonderful people on projects that have given me a huge spotlight,” she says of her ass-kicking résumé â€" after training that would seemingly lean more Streep than Stallone. “It’s been great fun, and gives me the freedom.”

Pike, a classically trained, London-bred daughter of concert musicians and opera performers, performed with Britain’s National Youth Theatre as a teen. She built a solid Shakespearean background even before leaving high school.

“I’ve loved doing those action films,” says Pike, 33. “They’ve provided me with great experiences and opportunity.

“But I would argue actually that ‘Jack Reacher’ is not a classic action film ... and a lot of that has to do with the way Tom approaches it.”

Cruise taking on the role of Reacher is a stretch â€" literally. The military cop-turned-traveling mercenary in author Lee Child’s massively successful book series is written as a 6-foot-5 menacing brute. But Pike had no doubts the one-time Top Gun was up to the job.

“When Tom does something that can be perceived as an action film, he does it quite differently,” she says. “Jack is the polar opposite of James Bond. It’s like comparing an Aston Martin with a Lear Jet: they’re both very expensive, but very different machines.”

She says her rapport with Cruise was critical to director Christopher McQuarrie’s film, which adds to the Reacher mystique by giving Pike’s Pittsburgh investigator a romantic undertone with the stranger who’s come to town to study a series of sniper shootings.

To perfect their chemistry, Cruise suggested he and Pike watch classic Hollywood comedies like “His Girl Friday,” where words are wielded like weapons.

“Because I come from a stage background and Tom has spent his life in front of a film camera, I learned a lot from him,” she says. “He’s a student of film. There’s nothing of the dilettante in him. We also drove our own cars during some action scenes, so he had us watching films like ‘Bullitt’ and ‘The French Connection’ to try and re-create that kind of excitement.”

Pike’s equally at home in movies without squealing tires or fisticuffs. She was Owen Wilson’s conflicted wife in 2011’s “The Big Year,” a 1960s factory worker on strike in “Made in Dagenham” and a different kind of Swinging Sixties Londoner in “An Education.” She’s put her plummy accent to good use in literary adaptations like 2005’s “Pride and Prejudice” and 2010’s “Barney’s Version,” which co-starred Paul Giamatti and Dustin Hoffman.

“It takes all kinds of roles to make a career,” Pike says. “I love the opportunity to be a ‘romantic interest’ in a big-budget film, but I wouldn’t want anyone to think they define me.”