In Reunited, Awards Insider hosts a conversation between two Oscar contenders who have collaborated on a previous project. Today, we speak with Rosamund Pike, who stars in Saltburn, and Chris Messina, who appears in Air. They previously worked together on the 2020 dark comedy I Care a Lot. 

Rosamund Pike and Chris Messina, who appeared together in 2020’s I Care a Lot, have actually recently caught up, when Pike called Messina from Prague to tell him her thoughts on his potty-mouthed performance as a sports agent in Air. “I mean, the body cursing, I don’t know what new type of swearing—what would you call it?” says Pike now as we meet over Zoom.

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“Body cursing, I like that,” Messina says. “Some of that was in the script, by the way, but the nastier stuff unfortunately was me.”

Messina and Pike both delivered delicious, scene-stealing supporting performances in films this past year. Messina as the “body cursing” sports agent David Falk to a young Michael Jordan in Ben Affleck’s Air, and Pike as the glamorous but oblivious Lady Elspeth Catton in Emerald Fennell’s psychosexual drama Saltburn (“I have a complete and utter horror of people being ugly!” Lady Elspeth exclaims with genuine fear at one point).

They both make it look easy, but the truth is this pair of versatile actors have been delivering in everything from charming comedies (Pike’s State of the Union and Messina’s The Mindy Project) and romantic fare (Pike’s Pride & Prejudice and Messina’s Vicky Cristina Barcelona) to Ben Affleck–starring dramas (Pike’s Gone Girl and Messina’s Argo and Live by Night). In I Care a Lot, they went head-to-head as adversaries when Rosamund’s con artist Marla Grayson, who preys on elderly people, is challenged by Messina’s aggressive-lawyer character. It’s a strong showcase of two actors working at the top of their craft and walking that tightrope of tone between comedy and drama.

Now, reunited to talk about their current work in Saltburn and Air, Pike and Messina reminisce about the first time they met, the toughest part of supporting work, and which actors they most admire today.

Vanity Fair: What do you remember about the first time you met?

Rosamund Pike: I remember coming on set on I Care a Lot in Boston and Chris being absolutely ready to go; [he] came in hot right out of the gates. He was super prepared, which was amazing because we had an eight-page scene to do. I think I was still partially ready, nearly ready, but with finishing off to do. Chris was immaculate. This guy had such extreme suits and Chris was in it completely. Do you always do that, Chris? Do you always come in hot with so much to offer?

Chris Messina: Well, I was nervous to work with you, honestly. That’s the truth. I’d seen Pride & Prejudice, I’d seen An Education, I saw Gone Girl. I was like, “Who is this person?” It felt like there was nothing you couldn’t do, and I couldn’t even pinpoint who you were because all the performances were so different. So I was nervous. And also, that feeling it’s your movie and you’ve been there shooting, so I don’t want to get in your way, really, and let you down. I also think for me, it’s a way to keep some of the anxiety at bay. I had been rehearsing it and preparing it, and so then I could be as present as I possibly could with you and see what else would happen.

Pike: It was probably maybe the best day on the whole film. And it’s certainly the scene that stands out to everyone because it’s who Marla is. It’s just really fun to see two assholes playing their best game. I love that film because it’s a crime movie where the central criminal isn’t actually breaking the law, which is why the writing is so clever. We had whatever chemistry is—whatever the instant thing where you can just spark off someone? So we’ve been looking and hoping to do something else together since then.

Messina: It’s so nice when you find, like in tennis or maybe any sports or maybe anything in life, when people make you better, and that’s what she did for me.

Pike: It’s knowing that you throw something out and what you throw out will change what you get back and that the times when acting becomes frustrating is when you throw out different stuff and you get the same thing back, which also happens. Some people who can deliver really wonderful performances for an audience, they come in with an idea of what they want to deliver and whatever you give doesn’t change it. And they can be very valid performances in their own right and you can see the finished film and think, “Wow, that’s great,” but it’s not the same rewarding experience to work with someone like that. And it happens quite a lot. People construct their characters in isolation, and I think I really don’t do that.

Did you both have that creative dynamic with anyone on your new films, Air and Saltburn?

Messina: In Air, most of my stuff is done on the phone. Phone acting, although I guess could be fun, I wanted to see Matt Damon’s eyes. Because in the way that [Affleck] filmed it—which doesn’t sound so unique, but I think it is, having done a ton of phone work—we filmed it at the same time. So Matt and I were down the hallway from each other. We were really on the phone.

Pike: I remember you telling me that, and sometimes the sound guys told you you were overlapping each other, right? You were both shouting so loudly, or you were shouting so loudly.

Messina: Yeah, we could overlap or we could improvise. So in a way, it felt like Matt and I were in the scene together, but really we were down the hall.

Pike: That is unusual because a lot of the time you have to really think ahead if you’ve got a scene on the phone and key in with the first AD that you would really like the other actor to be there. Most actors, if you ask, will be willing to do it. I did a film with Paul Giamatti a long time ago and it hadn’t been prepared for, but we both agreed to do it for each other. But sometimes you never know. You have to go about your day and you never know quite when they’re going to get to the phone scene. So sometimes you’ll be out in a bookshop or something or doing something else when suddenly you get a call, and you have to start launching into this scene in a public place. It can be quite funny.

Messina: Ben was operating in my room. That was fun. You know, working with him, he’s got such a high cinematic IQ from doing this for so long.

Pike: I don’t think I have as high a cinematic IQ, so I don’t think he had much to share with me at that stage we worked together, sadly.

Messina: I think you have it. I think you have it. You might not know it.

Pike: I don’t have it. I don’t have it. I would love to have it. It’s still, so much is a mystery to me. I feel I’ve got so much to learn.

Messina: But maybe that’s a good thing though, because I remember Al Pacino, I was listening to him, like some Q&A or something, and he said, “When I was young I didn’t have any clue where the camera was or what it was doing. And that was great. As I got older, I knew what the camera was doing and that was great.” So I think it works both ways.

Pike: The questions Ben would ask David [Fincher] when we were making Gone Girl just went totally over my head. It was like a club that I was just not part of.

Messina: Well, whatever you were doing, it worked. What about the actors in Saltburn?

Pike: Saltburn was an incredible ensemble and I think because Emerald is an actress, one of the first things she said to all of us when we first met her is, “If you do this film, there will be no star trailers. There will be no going back to trailers. I’m going to park the trailers in as inconvenient a place as possible so you will not return to them. We’re all going to sit around the same scuzzy green room and hang out between takes. I don’t want anyone to leave set ever, really. You can go away, and if there are costume changes, they’re going to be done behind a curtain in a room on set and everything’s going to happen,” which was a really powerful tactic.

Because it can be tempting to go back and deal with some life stuff. It definitely bred this great camaraderie and trust and a we’re-all-in-it-together feeling, which I really, really liked a lot.

Jacob Elordi told me you slept in the Saltburn house.

Pike: I did sleep in the house, which I think might’ve been Emerald’s ploy because I think she thought she would go mad if she stayed there, and then she thought, “It might be okay if Rosamund went mad, so she should stay there.” And I did. I remember arriving and opening the curtains and seeing the catering trucks outside and thinking, “Oh, my God, I’ve made a terrible mistake.” But it did make me go slightly mad.

But you were asking about an actor, for instance, Carey Mulligan, right? I was reunited with Carey Mulligan and Emerald gave us an opportunity to improvise our way into all the scenes we did. One of them has stayed in, which is us chatting on the sofa as Oliver Quick walks in for the first time to meet this terrifying family, us just musing in a completely clueless way about how he could possibly be poor if his parents were drug dealers because don’t drugs cost a lot of money? Basically you had to put yourself into any position and think, What is the most naive position I could take on this? And that would usually be right for the character.

You’ve both delivered scene-stealing supporting performances for a long time. How do you approach the “support” part of a supporting performance?

Messina: Just as much as if I was the lead of the film—it’s just as important. And sometimes those roles, they’re hard to find an arc in or the writer hasn’t really given them an arc or left out the end of their arc or something. So it’s trying to find that, whether that be with a director or writer, trying to help this person you’re playing have a completion of some sort. So that’s always a challenge.

Pike: Being a supporting role is very nice. I mean, we’d come into the makeup trailer on Saltburn and just think, “God, Barry [Keoghan] is here all day, every day with this intensity.” And he was having a baby, and he’s got to have his top off. So he’s training every morning before makeup. All these things that people don’t think about. But I think the work that goes into it, you have to think as deeply about the character. The audience might not see it. I’ve realized afterwards that of course that’s never going to be picked up on by an audience because it’s just not in the script and therefore won’t be on the screen.

Do you ever ask when looking at a supporting role, “Would this movie work without this character?” In the case of Air, no, it fundamentally wouldn’t work without your character, and you change the tempo and that’s maybe your energy as well. Every time you’re onscreen, you change the rhythm of the film, which is essential and vital to that film.

Messina: He acts like he’s in the way. You need somebody in the way.

Pike: And he is in the center of his own movie. I mean, he is the star.

Messina: Absolutely. You’re entirely, 100% correct. Because in truth, with the movie, this is a little bit of what you’re saying: David Falk, at that moment in his career, this deal was incredibly important. It changed his career. It changed the advertisements and sports in a gigantic way. I think also that in researching him, he was a brilliant guy who had to outwork everyone else to get to where he was, which I can relate to. I really enjoyed tapping into that part of myself.

You two are great at asking each other questions about acting that I would never think of.

Pike: There are not many people I trust or feel that I can talk to about it. It’s something that I love talking about. Sometimes, some actors are weird about not wanting to talk about it—they guard it jealously like a secret. Chris, do you have a lot of actor friends that you talk to about this?

Messina: I have a handful of them, but you’re right, I find that some people don’t even have or know what their process is, perhaps. Maybe some are, like you say, guarded and don’t want to share. But I have a list of people that I call when I’m driving home, which is usually the worst time being an actor, when you’re driving home. And so I see who I can get to be like, “So then I did this, and she said…. Do you think it was okay that I yelled in the scene? So the scene before…” And these poor friends have to hear my anxiety. I’d like to add you to that list.

Pike: I can be on that list. Oh, God, l’esprit de l’escalier, they call it in French, where you have the brilliant idea just as you’re going down the stairs.

Who do you think are some of the more exciting and interesting filmmakers and actors working today?

Pike: I was obsessed with Justine Triet’s film Anatomy of a Fall. I think probably we both would love to be in something like that.

Messina: Yes. I love that film as well. The person that just popped in my head is Andrew Scott. I think he’s really, really beautiful and special.

Pike: I saw him play Hamlet here in London, and it was documentary. It was like you just filmed a guy called Hamlet, just speaking, just what came out of his mouth. He is an astonishing actor. I am naughtily thinking of all the people I would not like to work with. Obviously, I’m not going to say…

Messina: I would love Fincher. I would love a shot of 50 takes, I really would. And maybe talk to me afterwards and I maybe would feel differently, but I would love to be on his set.

Pike: I’d like to work with Alexander Payne. I’ve always just loved the way he just makes things that are bespoke, and for him, and interest him. And I think if you dive deeply into something that interests you, it will interest others. He always shifts my perspective somehow in a quiet way.

Is there a role in a film that was before your time that you would’ve loved to do?

Pike: Mary Poppins. Bonnie in Bonnie and Clyde.

Messina: God, there’s so many. Every movie that Al Pacino did in the ’70s, but I would never, ever be able to even come close. You know what I watch on repeat is Paul Newman in The Verdict. He’s so amazing and it’s such a great movie. I would’ve loved to work with Sidney Lumet. But we could do Bonnie and Clyde.

Pike: I think we’re too old. [Laughs.] No, hopefully we’ll sit on the same side, just sit on the same sofa and talk about something we’ve made in the future.