Rosamund Pike bonds with Dame Judi Dench in `Madame De Sade`

Rosamund Pike will be reunited with Dame Judi Dench when they take to the stage in Madame De Sade at the Wyndham’s theatre in March next year. The pair previously appeared together in the 2002 James Bond film Die Another Day, reports London Theatre.

Pike, whose big breakthrough came playing the chilling Miranda Frost in Pierce Brosnan’s final blockbuster outing as the suave British secret agent, has recently made a name for herself on the London stage, appearing in plays including Summer And Smoke, Gaslight and Hitchcock Blonde. Since filming Die Another Day, her screen appearances have included The Libertine, opposite Johnny Depp, and Pride And Prejudice, alongside Keira Knightley.

In Yukio Mishima’s play Madame De Sade, Pike plays title character Renée, wife of the notorious Marquis De Sade, whose story is told from the viewpoint of six women. Dench plays Renée’s mother, who disagrees with her daughter’s devotion to a husband imprisoned in the Bastille.

Dench is one of London theatre’s most lauded performers, with a total of seven Laurence Olivier Awards collected during her career to date. Among her recent London performances, the theatrical dame starred in Hayfever in 2006 and The Breath Of Life in 2002. On screen she has become a regular in the Bond films, playing M to both Brosnan and Daniel Craig’s 007, and won an Oscar for her performance in Shakespeare In Love.

Madame De Sade is the third play to be staged at the Wyndham’s as part of the Donmar West End season which also includes Kenneth Branagh in Ivanov, Derek Jacobi in Twelfth Night and Jude Law playing Hamlet.

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