The Now You See Me franchise has a new villain, and she’s quite cutthroat. And is there anyone else better suited for that type of role than Oscar-nominated actress Rosamund Pike? The answer is no, and trust us when we say, she was perfect for this role.
In the third installment in the beloved franchise, Now You See Me: Now You Don’t, follows the retired Horsemen illusionists and a new generation of magicians banding together to work an international diamond heist. However, Pike plays the ever-so-polished and incredibly cunning villain, Veronika Vanderberg.
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While Pike plays the villain, and oftentimes the complex (and somewhat scary) characters, Pike’s personality in real life couldn’t be farther from that. In her conversation with SheKnows, you can tell she possesses a certain gentleness and empathy, one where she even looks at her villainous character with kind eyes.
Below, see what Pike said to us about what family means to her, what drew her to Veronika, and more:
SheKnows: This movie touches on families, the good, the bad, and the found families. But what does family mean to you?
Rosamund Pike: Family is a sense of belonging. It’s a sense of safety. It’s a sense of knowledge. I think it’s being known, being understood, and being taken unconditionally. I think in our business, we do get temporary families who mean something to us. You’ve got the groups that you spent a lot of time with, and you have very profound experiences with, and they’re your film families. It’s different from biological families, but they have a kind of magic.
SK: Well, that actually goes to my next question, which was, as Dave Franco says, or rather his hologram says in the beginning [of the film], and what they touch on later-“We need magic now more than ever.” How do you bring magic into your own life and into your children’s lives?
RP: Magic, or enchantment, is something I really believe in. That can be decorating a Christmas tree as enchantment or, creating a trail of glow sticks to a dark house to a bedroom, or it’s leaving a note for someone, [that] can be enchantment. A note in a lunchbox, a note slipped under a door, or a chocolate on a pillow.
SK: No, I love that. Small acts of love.
RP: The thing is, ‘I’m thinking of you,’ I guess. I like surprises. I think surprises are big part of my life, and my family’s life. I like to surprise people.
SK: Your character Veronika is so unnerving. When she dropped her smile when the cameras were gone, I got a chill down my spine. I know you are known for playing such complex roles, but what drew you to this unnerving but really polished character?
RP: Veronika intrigued me because I know her function in the movie, and I’m fully aware of what my role and responsibility to this franchise is, which is to create someone who’s vain and sort of self-serving and kind of deliciously so. We can enjoy her downfall. But what was rewarding to me was that there was this real person inside, and I could see where this brittleness comes from. This is someone who had experienced something that had hurt her as a young person, which she had dealt with that hurt by sort of sealing herself off and just becoming someone who hurt others. I’m not expecting audiences to care for Veronika. But for me, it gives depth to the character to play.
SK: No, I mean, you see how they got there, who they are. So now that that came through, that she was a person before the vainness and the scariness came over. I can’t wait for everybody to watch this movie.
RP: Well, we just want people to have a good time and see something to put a bit of magic in their lives as we go into fall. They’re great films, and I think our new our cast of characters is so I think the fact that we all had a good time making the film shines through it. I think that you can’t hide that if people don’t get on, you kind of feel it in the movie. And this everyone did get on, and hopefully that will translate to audiences all over the world.
NOW YOU SEE ME: NOW YOU DON’T opens nationwide on November 14, 2025.
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