Rosamund Pike Says 'We're All Being Conned by the Wellness Industry', Shades Gwyneth Paltrow's Goop

Rosamund Pike is speaking her mind about what it means to be "well."

The Oscar-nominated actress, 44, opened up about how the modern wellness industry has led people astray.

"I think we’re all being conned by the wellness industry," she said in a recent interview with The Guardian. "This idea that it’s no longer enough to be healthy and we have to be 'well' is something that needs to be interrogated."

Pike was speaking about her new BBC audio drama People Who Knew Me, which features gentle ribbing of Gwyneth Paltrow's wellness and lifestyle company Goop.

The British actress expanded on her feelings about the ubiquitous industry.

"Yet it’s so seductive because it’s in pursuit of things that people are ashamed to want, like youth, beauty and fitness. #MeToo gave women an opportunity to escape some of the demands put on them.

"Now, in a way, people are voluntarily flocking back to being controlled but in a different guise, by these wellness claims. It’s politicized our food, politicized our exercise and I think it’s really dangerous."

In the interview, Pike also spoke about the quality of roles for women over 40.

"It’s not too shabby at the moment," she told the outlet. "There have always been great films with fierce, full-on, female characters who were “too much”... Now television has also embraced outspoken women who don’t conform to traditional expectations of femininity — and with those characters come interesting opportunities for actresses."

Pike has spoken before about societal beauty standards. As a guest on The Kelly Clarkson Show in 2021, she talked about noticing her body being photoshopped for different movie posters. 

"For the poster for Johnny English [Reborn], my breasts were augmented," Pike told Clarkson of the 2011 comedy. "In the poster for the character shot, I've got a really impressive chest. Which I don't have."

Pike also recalled the time she noticed that her eyes were photoshopped to look brown, instead of her natural blue, for 2019's Radioactive poster. "I still don't quite know why," she said.

She went on to say that the most unsettling realization about those situations is that there may have been many other times she didn't notice her photos being doctored.

"Those are the obvious times, right? When you do notice, 'Oh, I've got brown eyes,' or, 'I've got massive breasts.' But there's probably countless times where our image is doctored and we don't notice it," she said. "Because I think we're all losing our grip on what we really look like."