Keira Knightley and Rosamund Pike sat down with Vanity Fair to discuss the 20th anniversary of the beloved adaptation of “Pride & Prejudice,” which has become the definitive version of the oft-filmed story for many a Jane Austen fan. Knightley and Pike played sisters Elizabeth and Jane Bennett, with their cinematic patriarch portrayed by the legendary Donald Sutherland.
“I have to say, most actors have been a disappointment since then,” said Knightley, who was just 19 when she starred in the film. The actress netted her first Oscar nomination for her work.
“Donald was pretty legendary,” Pike added. “We did have dinners with him sometimes, and he told us some pretty wild stories which cannot be shared.”
Sutherland, Knightley noted, was vehemently anti-smoking, a quality his castmates did note share.
“There was the party that Donald Sutherland came to. You weren’t allowed to smoke. He had it in his contract that nobody on the set was allowed to smoke anywhere near, and you couldn’t smell of smoke,” she recalled. “But of course everyone smoked back then. And everybody would be smoking, and then you’d be sort of spraying yourself. But the party he came to, he came in a gas mask. And he was like, ‘I want you to all be able to smoke. And I wanted to come to the party.’”
Sutherland died at 88 in 2024, leaving behind a filmography that included acclaimed performances in “Klute,” “Ordinary People,” and “The Hunger Games.” Helen Mirren, who worked with Sutherland in 2017’s “The Leisure Seeker,” told IndieWire he was “one of the smartest actors I ever worked with.”
“He had a wonderful enquiring brain, and a great knowledge on a wide variety of subjects,” Mirren said. “He combined this great intelligence with a deep sensitivity and with a seriousness about his profession as an actor. This all made him into the legend of film that he became.”
At the Lumière Festival in 2019, Sutherland reflected on his decision to become an actor.
“I come from a small town of 5,000 inhabitants. When I was 16 years old, my father brought me into his car — as was the tradition in Nova Scotia, where I’m from — and took me for a quick drive. He then stopped on the side of the road and asked what I wanted to do with my life. I told him I wanted to become an actor,” he said. “I have no idea why I thought to become an actor. Neither of us had ever been to the theatre before.”