Actress Daisy Edgar-Jones has opened up on the moment she was told she was cast as the iconic Jane Austen heroine Elinor Dashwood in the latest big-screen adaptation of Sense and Sensibility. Throughout the decades, the role has been tackled by stars such as Joanna David in the 1971 BBC TV miniseries, Irene Richard in the 1981 BBC TV adaptation and Emma Thompson, who not only starred as Elinor but also wrote the screenplay for Ang Lee’s celebrated 1995 feature film, earning an Oscar for her script.
Speaking alongside her co-star, Outlander actress Caitriona Balfe, at the Irish premiere of the movie, the star, who found fame in BBC’s adaption of the novel Normal People, said: “I felt a real mixture of extreme euphoria, maybe the highest I’ve ever experienced. And terror, because Elinor Dashwood is somebody that I have grown up loving. She’s a character I read when I was young and really saw so much of myself in her,” she admitted.
She continued: “She’s a difficult character to bring to life on screen because so much of what happens to her is in between the lines.
“So much of it is in the unsaid, and so it just felt so exciting to get the chance to imbue her with all the spirit that I felt that she really has inside.
“I’m very lucky. I feel very grateful,” she reflected.
The original novel was first published in 1811 and follows the three Dashwood sisters and their widowed mother as they are forced to leave the family estate in Sussex and move to a modest cottage on the property of a distant relative in Devon.
Following the move and the huge upheaval, both Elinor and her sister Marianne, played by Esmé Creed-Miles, experience love and heartbreak, with the book taking its title from the very different ways they deal with their situation.
Elinor (Sense) loves Edward Ferrars, but learns he is secretly engaged to another woman and deals with it pragmatically.
Meanwhile, Marianne (Sensibility) falls fast for the charming John Willoughby, who breaks her heart when he leaves her for a richer woman.
This latest version will his screens on September 25 and also stars Frank Dillane, Herbert Nordrum, George MacKay, and Fiona Shaw.
