P&P DVD Tidbit: Funny & Interesting Commentary by Joe Wright

I've been listening to director Joe Wright's commentary while recently watching P&P movie (again) and I thought I'd post here some funny and interesting comments he made in his dvd commentary (as well as some P&P promo interviews he had done when the P&P movie was released back in 2005) of this film. JW was hilarious.

Here are some random ones (mostly taken from the "favourite Joe Wright quotes" from IMDB since everyone there including starsandbutterflies has covered them all ) ... with accompanied images I tried to add here FYE. :-D


- "They can go jump in a lake". (When pestered by the Austen hard cores)





- "I'm glad we made the movie for the people of Empire magazine, and not for the Seed of Chucky."   




- "Simon (aka Mr. Bingley) hasn't forgiven me for dying his hair red. But he should get over it, do you know what I mean?"


- "The first time I saw this logo and
heard that music, I just nearly wet myself."


- "A lot of gay Australians amongst the dancers there, um...I won't point them out."


- "They're both appalling riders, Matthew and Simon. Neither of which can sit on a horse, hardly, let alone ride it. And terrified of horses."



- "That finding the person you're supposed to be with is like coming home."






- "I kept trying to find a way of getting the toilets into this ball."




- "I think Mr Collins has got a filthy mind. He's all about sex, Mr Collins, really. Or, rather, sexuaI frustration."








- One of the make-up artists stood beside me while we were shooting this. And she whispered very quietly, "I wish that was my life."




- "I'm glad she didn't tell me that while she was shooting Pride and Prejudice.
(when told that Keira had been practicing her nun chucks for Domino on the P&P set, in her Lizzy Bennet dress!)"




Scroll down below to continue reading more of Joe Wright's commentary ...


- "She's one of the most extraordinary people I've ever met. She's far cleverer than I am." (referring to his now ex-fiancee Rosamund Pike)





- "I wrote her a letter saying I love it when you play a bitch, please come and play a bitch for me. And she succumbed (referring to Judi Dench)"




- "I thought she was too beautiful to play Elizabeth. I saw other actresses, but they all said what they knew you wanted to hear. I couldn’t find the spirit of Lizzy…. but Keira had this incredible liveliness of wit and mind, and independence of spirit."


- "I went back to the script to make sure her character was a tomboy in a way that she doesn’t fit into the preconceived ideas of the feminine ideal of the period - being perfectly mannered and demure and quiet and slightly more fleshy. Keira's costumes were always on the unfussy side. She doesn’t really think about what she looks like particularly, she’s more interested in cerebral matters."



- "First, he's the right age. Second, he's a big strong manly man. I didn't want a pretty boy, boy band kind of boy, I wanted a man, and he's an incredible actor. I've loved his work for many years and I think he is an astonishingly good actor. I know also he is not vain; he's not coming to the role trying to promote himself as a f---ing sex symbol. He's coming as an actor trying to understand who his character is. He's interested in people and I think that's probably why he acts and so for all of those reasons he felt perfect. Also, he is just a big sexy man and when I put him opposite Keira Knightley they were just astonishing together."

- "Mr. Darcy gives men a quality to aspire to. The best qualities in men are generally seen as feminine: gentleness, kindness, thoughtfulness. Elizabeth teaches him how to be a proper man."


- "I’ve never seen the BBC miniseries with Jennifer Ehle and Colin Firth. I purposely didn’t watch them because I was worried I would nick ideas and plagiarize them. I don’t like the idea of creating work as a reaction against other people’s work. I try not to compare myself to others or my work to other people’s work, because then you get either vain or bitter. I think it’s best to get on with your own course really."

- "I knew it had a huge place in the British consciousness, but I’d never read the book either. I got sent a screenplay for the film from Working Title and I read it thinking probably that I wouldn’t like it - I thought it was for girls really. But I had a huge respect for Working Title, so I thought I should read it. I went to the pub one Sunday afternoon and started reading it and by page 10 I found myself laughing out loud, and by page 60 I found myself crying into my pint of lager, which is a bit embarrassing. I was quite surprised by it, so then went away and read the novel and was shocked by what an amazingly immediate piece of writing it is. It felt to me like the first piece of literary British realism. It felt so acutely observed, and so detailed in its characterization of human interaction. I got very excited by the book and didn’t really take into account the kind of temple that had been built up around Pride & Prejudice and Jane Austen. I just thought it was a really good book and really wonderful characters and I thought I’d like to make it."
- "I wanted to be respectful to this 21-year-old girl who sat in a parlor in the south of England and wrote this book. I wanted to be true to her. I wasn’t particularly interested in the temples that had been built around her. I wasn’t interested in the ‘Jane Austen Franchise,’ if you will; not interested in the monolith that has been erected over her and her books. I was interested in being true to her spirit and the spirit in her stories. That was what was important to me."

- "I think it could have been very dangerous to take into account too much the great weight of responsibility that doing such a beloved novel puts on one."

"It felt like a youth novel that had been reappropriated by the fusty literary people."


"I wanted to make something that is about young people, about young people experiencing these emotions for the first time and not understanding the feelings they are having. If you have a 40-year-old man as your star not understanding the feeling he’s having then it becomes a bit unbelievable and suspect, rather like The 40-Year-Old Virgin or something instead of Pride & Prejudice."




- "I originally hadn’t considered someone as beautiful as Keira. I was looking for someone who didn’t fit the normal feminine conventions, and was bright and slightly difficult. I figured Lizzie Bennet would be quite difficult to live with; she’s tough-minded and questions everything all the time. When I met Keira, I realized that she asks questions of herself and other people, and is really a tomboy. She has a lively mind and a great sense of humour. During shooting, she kept on surprising me. What does one look for in an actor? Originality of thought; somebody who is able and willing to give their heart to what they are doing, and is able to really listen to the other actors. Keira did all of that, and was a hard worker."

- "I think that what Jane Austen wrote is a fairy tale on some levels. I believe that all the best fairy tales are based in social realism, have inherent emotional truths which remain relevant through the generations, and are worth telling over and over again. Today, people are still falling in love, people are still prejudiced against others, and people are still too proud on occasion. We like to be told that love exists, and this story is a joyful and satisfying affirmation of that. Pride & Prejudice is a love story about how to try to understand one another."


- "Well, Keira’s a mate, really.

She’s one of those people that immediately becomes a friend. She’s a very warm, open person, and incredibly brave and strong."






Last, but most certainly not least ...

- "Matthew is very blind. So that shot which women seem to swoon over—I'm behind the camera with a red flag waving so he knows where to walk. All he's trying to do is work out where's the red. That's montage!"


You can read more in here.