Do you remember how you first pitched your version of the adaptation to producers? <\/strong><\/p>\n As soon as the producers came to me and asked if I was interested in doing Pride and Prejudice, I scuttled away and read the book as fast as I could. At the time, I was reading Charles Bukowski, and so Jane Austen was a kind of shock, really. I was shocked by how modern and how exciting and vital the book seemed. I felt like I\u2019d missed out on something, and I was amazed by how young Jane Austen was when she wrote the book\u2014she was 21 when she wrote that first draft\u2014and how young the characters were. Elizabeth Bennet was 18. So that was my first and most important idea really. What I went to Working Title with was this idea that Elizabeth should be 18 and played by an 18-year-old. These were very young people falling in love for the very first time.<\/p>\n Also, I was dating someone who lived in a family of three sisters at the time, and the house was very, very loud and a mess always. I thought about period movies and how everything was always tidy and people spoke and listened to each other and then responded, and I wanted to convey some of that mess and vitality and youth and sheer volume in the house. I was a big fan of \u201970s realism and the use of radio mics and the way in which you could actually have overlapping dialogue. And so they were constantly talking over each other. So that was the atmosphere we were going for. <\/p>\n I\u2019m also from a family of three sisters, so I can just say that the movie\u2019s very accurate in that sense, of people just chattering over each other all the time.<\/strong> <\/p>\n It\u2019s like a battle of attrition. It\u2019s like whoever keeps talking for the longest is the one that will be heard eventually. Yes.<\/p>\n Focus Features<\/p>\n Speaking of realism, the movie\u2019s visuals are very distinct from the picturesque tradition people may expect when watching period dramas. I read that you had done a great deal of research about how life during this period wasn\u2019t as tidy and neat and proper as we might expect it to be. How did that research manifest itself onscreen? <\/strong> <\/p>\n One of my favorite bits of research was that they didn\u2019t have plumbed toilets at the time, and so I was kind of really confused that when you had a ball and you had like 200 people or 300 people come to a party at your house, where they all went to the bathroom. And what I discovered was that the men could go in the bushes, but the ladies would take diuretics all day to flush themselves out so that they didn\u2019t need to go to the bathroom. And if they did need to go to the bathroom, that was the end of their night. They had to go home. I remember saying to Carey [Mulligan] and Jena Malone that they should play that ball scene, when they go to Mr. Bingley\u2019s ball, they should play it as if they just needed to go for a pee the whole time. So it was kind of little details like that that were below the surface that felt fun.<\/p>\n Focus Features<\/p>\n I understand that screenwriter Deborah Moggach ended up writing something like 10 drafts of the script. How did the shape of the movie evolve from the first draft you saw to what we end up seeing?<\/strong><\/p>\n Yeah, also, Emma Thompson did some writing on it as well. I remember she just did a dialogue pass, and I remember going to meet her. I\u2019d never met her before, and being kind of nervous\u2014I was quite young and naive and nervous of meeting the great Emma Thompson\u2014I arrived at her house with my little briefcase and she said, \u201cRight, come on, we\u2019re going for a walk on Hampstead Heath.\u201d So off we went to the park, and then we stopped, and I sat on this park bench as she improvised scenes for me, and as she improvised the scenes I kind of wrote them down, hectically trying to capture her genius. The development was a long process, and I can\u2019t remember how many drafts we did. It might have been 10. But the shape of it\u2014I remember in earlier drafts, we went off with Lydia and Wickham on their elopement, but we couldn\u2019t afford to do that, so we stayed in the house. Often what you\u2019re dealing with is kind of what you want and also what you can have, what you can achieve. And so you are kind of trying to shape the script to not only creative necessities but also financial necessities. <\/p>\n Do you remember what scenes Emma Thompson improvised?<\/strong> <\/p>\n I remember the scene where Charlotte comes and says, \u201cDon\u2019t judge me.\u201d I remember her improvising that one because I remember being very moved by that idea, and it seemed very psychologically true. <\/p>\n I also read that the scripted ending was initially different. Not just the different endings for the American or British versions, but that Deborah had initially written an ending that was like a montage of a wedding party. Is that true? <\/strong> <\/p>\n Yeah, I remember there being a wedding-party scene but feeling like I didn\u2019t want to end with the wedding. It felt like I\u2019d seen that before. Also, I don\u2019t think we could afford a wedding as well. We were making it on quite a small budget for the time, and so I couldn\u2019t really afford a wedding. I sound rather kind of Georgian saying that I can\u2019t afford a wedding. I remember there being choices about how to end it simply, and also I wanted the ending to be this kind of emotional catharsis without it being about lots of people\u2014it just being about something quite simple. I really like the ending, the British ending, that ends on Mr. Bennet, but I think the Americans wanted something a little sweeter. They like sugar, you know. So we ended up with those two different endings. <\/p>\n So the British ending was your preferred one?<\/strong> <\/p>\n Yeah, it was Donald Sutherland\u2019s preferred one as well. I remember him seeing it and not knowing that I was going to end the film on his closeup and him being very emotional about that. He was easy to tears, Donald, and he was kind of very moved by that kind of sweet little laugh. He always laughs like that in the film because he was very concerned. He used to get kind of hung up on things, Donald, and he was very concerned about his modern teeth and that he had the wrong teeth for the period and that maybe I shouldn\u2019t have cast him \u2019cause he had the wrong teeth. So that\u2019s why in the film, whenever he laughs, he always puts his hand up like that, a kind of sweet laugh hiding his teeth. <\/p>\n Focus Features<\/p>\n The cast is obviously stacked. We have Keira, we have Matthew, we have Judi Dench. This was Carey Mulligan\u2019s first film. Was there anyone else that you had originally considered for any of the roles or anyone who maybe came close in auditions?<\/strong> <\/p>\n No. I mean, it\u2019s funny with casting; you spend a lot of time debating the right actor for a role, and then once you make that choice, at least for me, there is no doubt that you ever could have cast anyone else. They feel to me now it would be impossible to replace any of them with anyone else. They\u2019re also kind of perfect in those roles. I just can\u2019t imagine it. So I don\u2019t remember who else read for it. I remember Tom Hardy read for Darcy. I can\u2019t remember who else. <\/p>\n Well, Matthew Mcfadyen is my preferred Darcy, so I\u2019m glad that worked out.<\/strong> <\/p>\n He\u2019s my preferred Darcy too. There\u2019s something kind of so soulful and sad about him in a way. There\u2019s so much backstory in his eyes. <\/p>\n Another thing that this adaptation is really incredible at is conveying emotions or thoughts without the characters really having to say anything. There\u2019s Matthew\u2019s famous hand flex, of course, but there\u2019s also other choices like Bingley accidentally following Jane in the middle of a dance, or Mrs. Bennet turning counterclockwise when the men enter the drawing room. How much of that is the result of choreography or the script and how much of it is improv?<\/strong> <\/p>\n So, things like the hand flex, that was something I came up with but wasn\u2019t in the script. Mr. Bingley following Jane through the dance was something that happened on the day and was really just a technical kind of\u2014I knew I wanted him following her, and then I wanted the camera to pan down to find Mrs. Bennet. So that was when I came up with the hand going to reach for Jane\u2019s ribbon that would lead the camera down. That was kind of the craft that led that. I\u2019m pretty sure Brenda just improvised going the wrong way, turning counterclockwise or whatever it was. I mean, Brenda was like this amazing revelation of maternal silliness when we were shooting. She was so wonderful, and she just laughed and laughed and laughed and kept all of us laughing throughout the whole process. She was amazing, Brenda. My production designer, Sarah Greenwood, and set decorator Katie Spencer, who I\u2019d worked with in TV before this and have worked with ever since, really created 360 environments. For instance, the Bennet house was complete with smells. The fires had been laid and lit and put out, and the house sort of felt real and authentic and lived in.<\/p>\n Focus Features<\/p>\n You really get the sense of that during those long, single steady-cam shots. Those shots, too, also convey an incredible amount of exposition and characterisation without the audience really realizing that that\u2019s happening. How much rehearsal did those shots require?<\/strong> <\/p>\n Quite a lot of rehearsal, and we really inhabited that house. I had a wonderful DP called Roman Osin, and we walked those steady-cam shots over and over and over again\u2014finding details, developing them over a number of days. Because we were in that house for such a long time, it really became a home to all of us. We knew it inside and out and could develop stuff over a period of time. <\/p>\n Oh, no. No advice. I\u2019m excited to see what they\u2019re going to do with it, and I think there are certain stories, almost like the ancient myths that speak to something within us, some kind of need, some kind of collective subconscious need, and they get repeated for each generation. So I hope that they\u2019ll make it specific to the current generation and stay true to the\u2014no, that sounds like advice. Forget that. \u201cNo, I don\u2019t believe in advice.\u201d And then go ahead and give it! <\/p>\n I mean, it\u2019s possible you might be this team\u2019s Emma Thompson.<\/strong> <\/p>\n Yes, yes. I\u2019ve just got to improvise on Hampstead Heath.<\/p>\n This interview has been lightly edited and condensed for clarity.<\/p>\n Related Story<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"If you know and love the 2005 adaptation of Pride and Prejudice, then you know and love Joe…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":46411,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3935],"tags":[1380,25502,14732,77,1330,3943,25501,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-46410","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-movies","8":"tag-content-type-news","9":"tag-contentid-7a1bc538-a6a0-49d6-8d9f-d2c12194451e","10":"tag-displaytype-long-form-article","11":"tag-entertainment","12":"tag-locale-gb","13":"tag-movies","14":"tag-shorttitle-pride-and-prejudice-director-dissects-the-film","15":"tag-uk","16":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114392578574700729","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46410","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=46410"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46410\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/46411"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=46410"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=46410"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=46410"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"pride](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/c165-016-don-girls-4c-jpg-68065bc9cfdce.jpg\" "\\"pride")
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