Rosamund Pike: It was startling to meet Jack Reacher co-star Tom Cruise (METRO)

Sitting on a plush grey sofa, her posture so perfect you’d think she’d set it with a protractor, Rosamund Pike is talking about that dreaded life-work balance that we Brits are so bad at. ‘They say that when we talk about balance, we mean no balance at all,’ she says, in those deliciously sculpted tones of hers. ‘When the French talk about “équilibre”, as they call it, they actually mean they achieve it. We British mums apparently never achieve balance. We talk about life-work balance – it generally means something we’re not really succeeding at. We work too hard and life goes down the pan.’

The Hammersmith-born daughter of two opera singers, who rose to fame a decade ago in the James Bond film Die Another Day as the ice-cold Miranda Frost, is out to prove otherwise. We meet just a few months after the 33-year-old Pike gave birth to her first child, a son named Solo. In the midst of shooting Simon Pegg comedy The World’s End, she’s also dealing with the aftermath of a burglary at her mews house in West Kensington. And she’s relocating to a new place with her partner, businessman Robie Uniacke, who it turns out has just sold her TV on eBay without telling her.

READ MORE:http://metro.co.uk/2012/12/20/rosamund-pike-it-was-startling-to-meet-jack-reacher-co-star-tom-cruise-3323713/

Rosamund Pike sheds ice-queen shackles with meatier role in 'Jack Reacher' (SOUTH CHINA MORNING POST)

Rosamund Pike has shed her ice-queen imageto star opposite Tom Cruise in their action-packed new film, writes James Mottram

You might think the daughter of two opera singers, who holds a degree in English from Oxford University, and once counted Chelsea Clinton as a friend might be a little, well, unapproachable. It hardly helps that in the case of Rosamund Pike, she rose to fame as the icy Miranda Frost in 2002's James Bond film Die Another Day, a role she played rather too well. All of a sudden she was the English rose with thorns, aloof and standoffish. Or as she explains it: "Suddenly, my personality was usurped by Miranda Frost's hostility and cool."

In fact, the 33-year-old Pike is a rather warm soul who has a way of making you feel, if only for half an hour, like an old friend. When we meet at London's Soho Hotel, Pike curled up on a cream sofa, wearing a cream blouse, spiky heeled boots and black leggings, we talk about all manner of things - the merits of iPads, the redemption of tennis player Andy Murray, boozy Saturday nights out in the suburbs, her (not entirely serious) plans for a daytime TV chat show with Pierce Brosnan, her improving American accent and the "horrendous burglary" she endured a few weeks back.

This is a particularly hectic time for Pike: she's just started shooting The World's End, a comedy about an epic pub crawl from Shaun of the Dead's Simon Pegg and Edgar Wright. She's in the midst of moving house with her partner, Robie Uniacke, a businessman. They're also contending with parenthood. Pike gave birth in May to a boy they named Solo.

For all this, Pike presents a serene façade. "I'm much more chaotic than people realise," she says in her cut-glass accent. "People think I'm incredibly calm. It makes me laugh. They say things like, 'You've got this wonderful air of calm about you.' I take the compliment, because the reality is so far removed."

READ MORE: http://www.scmp.com/lifestyle/arts-culture/article/1105372/rosamund-pike-sheds-ice-queen-shackles-meatier-role-jack