Gone Girl actress Rosamund Pike stars as Marie Curie in Radioactive, the first biopic about the famed physicist since the 1943 drama Madame Curie.
Directed by Marjane Satrapi, the film will journey through Curie’s enduring legacies. From her scientific breakthroughs, her passionate bond with husband and research partner Pierre Curie, and the consequences that followed her discoveries—both for her and the world.
The film will take a deeper look at Curie’s life-long struggle to navigate her success and personal life, particularly centring in on her relationship Pierre. We ultimately see her grapple with her two great loves: science and family.
Born in 1867 in Warsaw, Poland, to a family of teachers, Maria Skłodowska studied at the Flying University, an underground institution that enabled women to pursue higher education. She eventually left for France to study at the University of Paris and took the name Marie.
It was there that she met fellow scientist Pierre Curie and the pair went on to marry and start a family, all while changing the face of science forever by their discovery of radioactivity.
In 1903, at the age of 36, she became the first woman to ever receive a Nobel Prize. She is the only woman to have won two in her lifetime and remains the only person ever to be awarded the prize for two different faculties of science—Physics and Chemistry.
Curie’s research is still considered one of the most game-changing discoveries to this day, despite controversy around radium and its destructive potential, as it has been used to create nuclear weapons—including the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombs that resulted in the death of up to 226,000 people.
In a tragic twist, her discoveries would lead to her own death as well. Prolonged exposure to radium, as we now know, can result in multiple types of cancers. Her remains were encased in lead due to their high levels of radioactivity and it is reported that her belongings will remain radioactive for another 1,500 years.
Radioative is set to premiere in cinemas on November 5.
