Behind The Scenes: Conversations with the Pride & Prejudice Cast

Here's a transcript I've compiled from the P&P DVD Deluxe 2-Disc DVD Gift Set's Bonus Extra Features (it features various interviews from the main cast of P&P, which can also be seen at A Bennet Family Portrait featurette and HBO's First Look: Pride & Prejudice featurette) ...

Conversations with the Cast

Donald Sutherland: You have no idea, you know, when you come into a picture...what Keira Knightley is going to be like. And it turns out she is... as extraordinary an actor as I've ever met in my life. Rosamund was... it's indescribable how ethereally beautiful she was. Talulah was... Oh, I just embraced her. Carey. They were like children, you know. And Jena...she just became this... silly child. They were wonderful. It was just a wonderful family, you know. Headed and embraced and supported... and catalyzed by Brenda Blethyn.

Talulah Riley: I'm glad she's my mummy. She's a lovely mummy to have. She's very mummyish.

Rosamund Pike:  You know, the Bennets wouldn't... The girls wouldn't be like they were if they didn't have a mother like Mrs. Bennet.

Brenda Blethyn: And the elephants said to the mouse...  [slowly]'why? why am I so big...and you're so small?' [Talulah laughs listening to her, lol] The mouse said, 'it's not my fault. I've been ill." [laughs with Talulah]

Brenda Blethyn: I've loved every minute of this film.
Talulah Riley and Carey Mulligan: [nods at Brenda in agreement]

Talulah Riley: To bond and to get to know the house... we decided to play the game Sardines... where one person hides and then everybody goes to look for them.




Tom Hollander: It was just me and Keira and Talulah... and all the girls playing Sardines in a cupboard.  That was one of the happiest days of my life. [laughs...and dances in the background as Mr. Collins, lol]

Tom Hollander: So all the men have been blessed by the women on this... for which we are all eternally grateful, I'm sure. They're charming. They're difficult to focus sometimes. Not on the work, but just on which woman to focus on.

Keira Knightley: So I don't know. I don't think I could pick... my favorite person to work with... 'cause they're all so amazing. And I know everyone always says that, but you do go... "No, this is such a special group of people."

Matthew Macfadyen: I used to watch the Bennets with kind of... jealousy, 'cause they're all running around and being, you know... laughing and screeching and having a fabulous time.

Carey Mulligan: And I love it when we're a family unit rather than... I mean, we've been sort of split up in various things... but when we're presented as the Bennets... and that scene when we go to Netherfield... and it's a Miss Bennet a Miss Bennet... a Miss Bennet, and a Mrs. Bennet. And it's like we were all together.

Talulah Riley: Carey and I have been really good friend... because, obviously we're both new to this. So it's been good to have somebody... that doesn't know what's going on as well.


Keira Knightley: The most incredible thing has been seeing people... like Carey Mulligan and Talulah Riley... whose first job this is and how... they've taken to it like ducks to water, you know... and how excited they've been.


Carey Mulligan: I think Jena helped a lot 'cause I kind of leaned... I have leaned on her the whole solo basically, because it's kind of... A: in my character, and B: just because she's so much more experienced.

Jena (to Carey as they get into characters as Lydia and Kitty): Listen. Can you hear?
Carey: Can you hear?
Jena: Can you hear?
Carey: Can you hear? [laughs]




Carey Mulligan: She kind of psyches me up for stuff... so she kind of helps me get in the giggly frame of mind all the time.


Jena Malone: You know when I go up she goes down... and we both sort of hop, she skips... and just sort of becoming synchronized with another actor. It's quite hard, actually.


Jena and Carey [both humming, lol...]: Mama and Papa [in unison...laughs]
Jena: That's how we synchronize.
Carey: Yeah.
Jena: That's how we boot up and cross analog.

Brenda Blethyn: We've become such friends, all of us, for real.

Matthew Macfadyen: Glorious. Donald and Brenda and all the girls. What a lovely family.


Rosamund Pike: Really fun, 'cause I'm an only child... So, I don't know what it's like to have that particular rivalry you have with a sister... or that particular love or whatever... and with this it feels like it has come alive.

Jena Malone: I feel like I've been so welcome here, and like... It's just been so nice.

Talulah Riley: I'm getting dreadfully into it and I want, you know, I want... I want it all to be real and  want to be Mary and I want everyone... and I want us to all live in the house together and us all to be really sisters... and it all to really happen. And then it doesn't, and then Joe [Wright] says, you know, "Check in the gate"... and then it stops and I'm thinking, "Oh, what happened?"

Rosamund Pike: We were all very, very nice to each other at the beginning... and suddenly, you know, we've started to sort of have real dynamics... as well as sort of the character dynamics. You know them to be... sort of trusted implicitly by a family like that. Because I don't have that, and then... I've loved it, really loved it.

Brenda Blethyn: It's been so happy, a kind of idyllic in that house. And the friendships and the camaraderie, it's just heaven.  And I don't want it to end, to be honest.

Talulah Riley: And I think we've been really lucky just with all the people. And everybody's so nice and everybody gets on so well. It's such an interesting mix of people. And Joe's managed to keep it all together like a headmaster, you know, with a load of unruly school pupils. And I think it's working, don't you?

View more BTS Photos of the P&P cast below...

 

P&P Behind The Scene

Also, check out the P&P Gallery for more images from the P&P movie.