Rosamund Pike Labels Her Video Game Film 'Doom' with Dwayne Johnson as 'One of the Most Atrocious Films Ever': 'Could Have Ruined My Career'

Rosamund Pike is candidly revisiting what she considers the nadir of her film career.

During a recent episode of the podcast How to Fail with Elizabeth Day, Pike, now 47, shared her thoughts on the 2005 action flick Doom. This film, which starred Dwayne Johnson, was an adaptation of the iconic first-person shooter video game that gained popularity in the 1990s. It came just three years after her breakout role in the James Bond film Die Another Day.

"It was a promising start — I was chosen for one of the biggest action franchises ever," she reflected on her early career. "While I was enjoying my time filming Pride & Prejudice, I received a call about joining an action franchise."

She recalled, "They were creating a cinematic version of Doom. In my idyllic setting, I thought, ‘Sure, I can jump on hay bales in my crinoline, so why not take on some zombies on Mars?’”

Initially, Ray Winstone was slated to star, but Johnson ultimately took the lead role. "Suddenly, I found myself alongside The Rock, and I realized how unprepared I was to be an action star," she admitted.

Meeting Dwayne Johnson for the first time was eye-opening. "He couldn't have been nicer, but he was a completely different entity compared to 24-year-old me, who had a team of macho guys around him," Pike recounted. "There were people hyping him up, weights scattered across the set. Every time a weapon appeared, it felt like a sacred object to the Doom fans... I was completely out of my element, and the film turned out to be a total disaster."

"Honestly, I could have derailed my career," she stated bluntly. "It’s probably one of the worst films ever made. A catastrophe, really. I don’t read reviews, but you get the feeling that surviving that experience was a stroke of luck."

Doom's reception was overwhelmingly negative; it garnered poor reviews from critics and audiences alike on Rotten Tomatoes and flopped at the box office. However, as Pike pointed out, neither her career nor Johnson's faced long-term repercussions.

"After that experience, I committed to doing my homework for future roles," she noted. "I lacked knowledge about video games and didn’t fit the mold of a typical action star. I wasn’t interested in being a sex symbol. It’s acceptable to fail at being an action star if that role requires embodying a bombshell image — which I simply wasn’t."

Pike even expressed concern that her performance suffered partly because "I wasn't attractive enough." She explained, "When many men say 'That film is terrible,' your role involves not just acting but also looking appealing. I didn’t take that seriously or put in the effort to achieve the physique that a more conventional female action star would have."

"Nobody guided me; nobody suggested — nowadays, an actress in that position would likely have a personal trainer and discussions about how to embody a character like Lara Croft," she added.

When host Elizabeth Day inquired whether Pike would consider playing an action hero today, over two decades after Doom, she quipped, "No, but if I do take on such a role, I want to bloody succeed at it."