P&P Actors About P&P And Their P&P Roles (part 2)

Here's a compilation of interviews from the main cast of Pride & Prejudice (2005) film. This time they were taken from the Pride & Prejudice companion book.

In the following random interviews for some P&P actors (as well as director Joe Wright and screenwriter Deborah Moggach) featured below, they were asked about their roles, co-stars, director Joe Wright's comments of each actors and their characters in the film.

Casting The BENNET Family

 

Jane, 22
"Jane is the oldest Bennet girl, and she would have had a lot of responsibility bringing up the younger girls, so she has a slightly sort of motherly instinct. But I didn't want to play her as as this very demure, slightly dull character. I wanted to play her as someone who laughs a lot.

We want the whole Bennet family to be a family that laughs; a whole household that's filled with laughter and filled with movement" - Rosamund Pike

"For Jane Bennet, I was looking for an actress who could portray the period ideal of what a woman should be, as Jane is hailed as the beauty of the family. Rosamund Pike was perfect and is wonderful in the role. - Joe Wright

LIZZIE, 20
"There is a huge pressure taking on a role as Elizabeth Bennet.

I think she's one of the best role for literature for girls, so if you're an actress and you get a chance to play her you definitely can't say no. But equally, it is scary, because when you read 'Pride and Prejudice', you feel like you own her. I know I did. I'm sure everybody feels the same way, and that they'll have a very clear idea of who Elizabeth Bennet is. It is terrifying job, but a really exciting challenge." - Keira Knightley


"I think Lizzie Bennet woudl be quite difficult to live with - she's tough and questions everything all the time..."

I was looking for someone who was bright and slightly difficult and didn't fit the normal convention. So I originally hadn't considered as beautiful as Keira. But when I met her I realized that she is really a tomboy and asks questions of herself and other people. She has a lively mind and a great sense of humour. During shooting she kept surprising me. - Joe Wright  


Mary, 18
"I think Mary is Jane Austen. That is my subplot, in that she is watching everyone and recording everything." - Talulah Riley

Kitty, 17
"Newcomers Carey Mulligan and Talulah Riley filled the roles of Kitty and Mary. This was their first film job and they were both huge Austen fans.

They were so excited about the whole process that it created a heightened atmosphere on set. - Joe Wright
 

Lydia, 15
"Lydia's focus is purely ribbons and soldiers. She's fifteen years old and she's very silly and she's very romantic and she's in love of the idea of being in love..."


"Her options are so different than our options today. For her, the only way to secure her life is to get married; otherwise you live with your family or leave home and are a governess to someone else's family, which gives you a lower social status, and no hope of marrying anyone of your own particular class. Many women were much more pragmatic about reasons for marrying, and the idea of marrying for love was regarded as frivolous. But Lydia was in love with love, so she is over-joyed to elope with handsome young Wickham. She fails to see any of the disastrous consequences, and returns triumphantly to her family home, the only married daughter, thrilled to be able to lord it over the others." - Jena Malone

Mr. & Mrs. BENNET

Mr.Bennet
"(He) didn't get married until he was forty/forty-five - he had to wait until his father died before he made the mistake to marry the frivolous Mrs. Bennet. And then he had five daughters, none of whom he could pass his estate onto because that was the law then..." - Donald Sutherland

Mrs.Bennet
"I feel like I've been abandoned by my husband. Donald went home this morning (from the  production) and I feel like I'm going to have a letter you know." - Brenda Blethyn 

"Mrs. Bennet has a very serious problem, which nobody except herself is taking seriously - she has five daughters, for whom she has to find husbands and eligible men are not so common around Longbourn. Her problem was compounded by the fact that the inheritance laws means that her husband's estate, that is her family home, will be inherited by a distant cousin (Mr. Collins) when Mr. Bennet dies, which means that she and her daughters can be turned out to fend for themselves." - BRENDA BLETHYN

MR.DARCY

"He is a serious young man, with huge responsibilities for his estate, and he has never met a young woman like her. When he proposes to her, first explaining how unsuitable a match she is, he makes that explanation out of integrity not arrogance."

"It's that intellectual playfulness and wit which I think, as well as being physically attracted to her, Darcy finds so enticing, and intoxicating." - Matthew Macfadyen

"Darcy is a young man who has had social skills huge responsibility. His parents died and left him with a massive estate and a younger sister to take care of, and I think that he had to grow up too fast..."

"Matthew is is very clever and had made Darcy that complicated layered person, who isn't easy on his skin, and who isn't easy to love, although he is a really good person with a sense of honour and integrity. Also, Matthew, unlike many actors is not vain, and was not afraid to be disliked by an audience at the beginning of the story - we have to dislike him because we are seeing him through Lizzie's eyes. And we grow to love him as Lizzie does." - Joe Wright
 

Mr.Bingley
"I was trying to find out what a man of Bingley's means and age would do with his time, whether he'd work or have a job or anything and they really didn't. They went for walks and played cards in the afternoon...it was a weird period when men didn't really do anything. He wasn't in government, he didn't have an estate so he really just had a big fat income and wandered around  with it in his pocket . Basically, his aim is to get married and, once married, to buy an estate and become a proper landed gentleman." - Simon Woods

Mr.Wickham
 "He is a lieutenant for the militia, a roving band of soldiers that moves around to defend England where the need is... It works for Wickham because he has debts all over the country, and probably a lot of girls around as well."

"He's a chancer. He's someone who will make good of a bad situation, and for Wickham, getting the best out of a situation is getting the most money out of it...He's somebody who who knows a good thing when he sees it...he's unbelievably charming and it's hard to deny him." - Rupert Friend  

Mr. Collins
"He is a suitor: He is the person that nobody in his or her right mind will want to marry." - Tom Hollander 

Charlotte Lucas
"Because she is now getting past marriageable age, she has to shackle herself for life to a man who bores her and who is a complete idiot. But she gets what she wants, which is independence and a home..."

"I felt that the humour, the huge humour in it, comes out a situation that is quite dark and quite desperate - that Charlotte marries herself to Collins, the most boring, conceited man in the world, is a real tragedy." - DEBORAH MOGGACH

Lady Catherine de Bourgh

"Lady Catherine is unspeakable - autocratic, suspicious, and pretty tricky. She wants Darcy to marry her daughter, and won't take any trouble from anyone." - Judi Dench  

 
"On our first day of filming we shot a dining room table scene, which any director will tell you is tough, and with Dame Judi Dench at the head of the table - on the first day of my first feature - terrifying. But she is a professional and a genuinely nice person, so it was a joy to watch her play such a difficult woman." - Joe Wright

Check out and view the Pride & Prejudice companion book online version!

Previous Related Post
P&P Actors About P&P And Their P&P Roles
Joe Wright On Casting P&P '05 Actors