Rosamund Pike says Billy Connolly had ‘a willpower that soared’ in new film

TORONTO – Not even Billy Connolly’s castmates knew of his health problems on the set of “What We Did On Our Holiday.”

The Scottish star was diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease and early-stage prostate cancer just three weeks before shooting began on the family comedy, which opens at Edmonton’s Princess Theatre on Friday after hitting theatres in Toronto and Vancouver earlier this month.

Connolly underwent surgery to remove the cancer before shooting began and didn’t tell writer-director duo Andy Hamilton and Guy Jenkin — nor his fellow actors — about his Parkinson’s.

“We had no idea. Absolutely no idea,” said Oscar-nominated “Gone Girl” star Rosamund Pike, who plays the daughter-in-law to Connolly’s character.

“It just makes you think, ‘God, what a professional,’ that the show must go on. There’s a willpower that soared. It’s a strange thing that can happen, I think, when you’re performing: things can be falling apart in your life and somehow you step into the shoes and pretend to be somebody else and somehow muster it.

“It was a very generous act on his part to keep it to himself, because I think he probably knew that everybody would be incredibly concerned and worried.”

Pike and David Tennant play separated parents who try to keep their split a secret when they take their children to the Scottish Highlands to celebrate the 75th birthday of his father (Connolly).

It was Pike’s first time working with Connolly and she fell in love with the “gentle, surreal sort of nature of his humour,” she said.

“He said things like, ‘Just never trust a man who, when left alone with a tea cosy, doesn’t try it on.'”

Emilia Jones, Bobby Smalldridge and Harriet Turnbull make a big impression as the hilarious children. Pike said the young actors didn’t read a script and were only told what they would have to do scene by scene.

Pike said she well understood her character’s struggles while on a road trip with the family, noting she and her partner travel with their two young sons “all the time.”

“I remember once doing a flight to L.A. with 15 pieces of Lego and managing out of these 15 pieces of Lego to create so many things,” said Pike.

“I think I’d forgotten what I meant to bring for the flight and I was dismayed to find this small Ziploc with 15 pieces of Lego and nothing else.

“I thought, ‘Oh my goodness, what am I going to do?’ And actually we built car parks, high rises, we built L.A., we built London, vehicles. It was really fun.”

Pike said she and her castmates enjoyed shooting in the Highlands, where they went hiking in their downtime.

But the midges were unbearable, especially while cameras were rolling.

“They’re so vicious and there are clouds of them,” she said.

“They travel in clouds of sort of a million at a time.”

They were particularly pesky during shooting for the final dramatic scene, in which the cast members had to stand still on a cliff.

“I’d look at the actress next to me and her face would just be a sort of river of midges,” said Pike.

“They would just be sort of running like mascara running down someone’s eyes, but it would be midges.

“I think the sort of jubilation at the end when we all dance and there’s was a kind of wonderful, madcap fervour about it — I think it’s the thrill of escaping the midges as much as anything.”