1. Rosamund Pike
Rosamund Pike has had one hell of a career so far. She sailed into her Bond debut as the icy and arch Miranda Frost at the tender age of 21, fresh out of finishing drama school. Given that her Miranda, a secretly traitorous MI6 agent who beds Bond and then betrays him with elegance, seems to more than match her more senior counterparts in the film, the fact that Pike was a fresh new face and a first time movie actress is admirable to say the very least. Following Bond, her career blossomed, slowly but surely, into a series of interesting and varied roles - from her subsequent role playing Johnny Depp's aristocratic wife in The Libertine, to expressing her surprisingly good comedic side in fare such as Johnny English Reborn which, ironically, parodies the spy films that gave Pike her big break. However, Pike's star has never shined as bright as with her most recent, and most celebrated role as Amy Dunne in the acclaimed Gone Girl. If Miranda Frost was chilly, Amy is an iceberg of a character. In Gone Girl, Pike is the darkest she's ever been, undergoing a difficult and harrowing journey to transform herself into a nightmare of a human being, who looks like she belongs on the front cover of Vogue. Pike's Amy is every bit as conniving, devious, cold, brutal, dark, intelligent, and intensely engaging, as one could hope for, causing her to land her first Academy Award nomination, and receive well-earned critical accolades. As she journeys forward in her career, it seems clear that Rosamund Pike has more than beaten the 'Bond girl curse' - she has endured and thrived to become one of the most interesting, dependable, and talented actress of a generation. Which failed Bond girls deserved to get more post-007 recognition? Discuss the curse in the comments below.