Why Rosamund Pike chose to take on the role of Marie Curie in 'Radioactive'

For Rosamund Pike, taking on the role of Marie Curie was almost a no-brainer. Pike plays the famous scientist in the new Amazon Studios fictionalized biopic, "Radioactive." She recently talked about the role.

"Here is a woman, you look at the pictures, who looked fairly conventional. She wasn't." Pike said on "Popcorn with Peter Travers." "She just never played by the rules. And I thought, 'I want to play this woman. There's mischief to be had'."

The film is based on the graphic novel by Lauren Redniss. It looks at the achievements of the two-time Nobel Prize-winning scientist, including the development of the theory of "radioactivity."

Pike teamed up with director Marjane Satrapi to tell the story of Curie.

"She was a formidable creature," Pike, 41, told Travers. "You couldn't make a conventional biopic about Madame Curie because she was too much of a rebel. She was an unruly element. And you needed Marjane. You needed a director with a little bit of rock and roll who was going to kind of explore the parameters."

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Pike added, "I think there's been sort of this misconception from the time I was in school really that science somehow isn't sexy. And I think science is deeply sexy. And I think the fundamental requirement for scientists is curiosity. And she had curiosity."

Be sure to watch the full interview with Peter Travers and Rosamund Pike in the video above.