Rosamund Pike and Sam Riley on Marie Curie's Polish identity and the chemical symbol for Radium

In the new movie Radioactive, Rosamund Pike and Sam Riley play Marie and Pierre Curie, the star-crossed couple who bonded over science and helped discover two elements: Radium and Polonium. They also both died earlier than they should have, due in part to their close and unprotected work with those radioactive elements.

The A.V. Club talked to a cunningly masked Pike and a straight-faced Riley via Zoom for the interview above. In it, we talk scientific passions, Polish identity, and whether or not they remember their grade school studies.