NEW YORK — Daisy Edgar-Jones had one major question after landing the role of Elinor Dashwood in the latest adaptation of Jane Austen’s Sense and Sensibility: Who would play her younger sister, Marianne?
Having spent much of her life immersed in Austen’s novels and their screen adaptations, Edgar-Jones had long imagined herself appearing in one of the author’s stories. She was now set to portray Elinor, the older and more reserved of the two Dashwood sisters, in a film scheduled to open in theaters Friday.
For an English actor of her generation, appearing in an Austen adaptation can feel like a natural career milestone. Ang Lee’s 1995 version of Sense and Sensibility, for example, earned Kate Winslet her first Oscar nomination and brought Emma Thompson her first screenwriting win.
This new production also carries a distinction of its own: Georgia Oakley is the first woman to direct a major adaptation of Sense and Sensibility.
The film features an array of male romantic leads, including George MacKay, Frank Dillane and Herbert Nordrum. But for Edgar-Jones, the emotional connection between the two Dashwood sisters remained at the heart of the story. Finding the right actress to portray Marianne, whose feelings are more openly expressed than Elinor’s, was therefore essential.
“The relationship between those two actors” was, Edgar-Jones said, “kind of everything.”
Finding the Right Marianne Dashwood
Oakley understood that the film’s success would depend heavily on the chemistry between its two leads. Having studied Austen at school, she wanted to ensure the actresses could convincingly portray sisters with a shared emotional history.
“The film, as I saw it, would kind of live or die by the relationship between those two actors,” Oakley said. “It was quite a pressurized situation trying to find sisters that, to me, were believably sisters.”
Among the candidates was Esmé Creed-Miles. Although she did not approach the audition with the same longstanding devotion to Austen as Edgar-Jones, she brought something particularly valuable to the process: a genuine friendship with her prospective co-star.
The two actresses had known each other since their teenage years, when they spent a formative summer together in Yorkshire filming an independent movie called Pond Life. They also bonded over watching Love Island in the evenings.
That shared past helped them establish the closeness the roles demanded.
“So much of sisterhood is a shared history, a shared context, a knowledge of one another and so sort of acting across from Esmé, having such an image of her 17-year-old face, really helped,” Edgar-Jones said. “We just slotted straight into the roles.”
Their connection became apparent during a chemistry read, when the actresses worked through several emotionally demanding scenes. One involved Elinor finally admitting to Marianne that she, too, was heartbroken over a man.
The scene helped Edgar-Jones gain a deeper understanding of her character, while the ease between the two performers convinced those watching that they could bring the sisters to life convincingly.
“Daisy feels like family to me,” Creed-Miles said. “We felt so almost spiritually, eerily connected to these women.”
Even their behavior between scenes reinforced the impression. During a break in the auditions, Creed-Miles took some of Edgar-Jones’ lunch while her co-star was reading with another actor.
Oakley saw the moment as another indication that the pair naturally embodied the relationship between Elinor and Marianne.
“I can’t really explain it, but it immediately felt very Elinor and Marianne,” Oakley said. “They were both really funny and kind of goofy with each other and, straight off the bat, they were just like making fun of each other and they just had a very sisterly dynamic.”
Creed-Miles Balances Acting With Other Creative Pursuits
Creed-Miles, the daughter of actors Samantha Morton and Charlie Creed-Miles, has worked in the entertainment industry intermittently for much of her life. Her first role came at age 6, when she played a Shirley Temple impersonator in a film by Harmony Korine.
She later starred in the Amazon Prime series Hanna, but has remained hesitant about making acting her sole professional focus.
“It’s not that I don’t like acting or don’t want to act or don’t think it’s important and special, it’s just that there’s lots of other things that I’m also really interested in,” Creed-Miles said.
Her interests extend to photography, music and filmmaking. Photographs she took on the Sense and Sensibility set appeared in Vogue, she plays in the alternative rock band Cusk, and she has directed a short film.
Part of the appeal of joining the Austen adaptation was the opportunity to work with Oakley, whose debut film, Blue Jean, follows a closeted gym teacher in England in the late 1980s. Creed-Miles was already a fan of the filmmaker’s work.
For Oakley, meanwhile, Austen’s writing offered a way to explore social and political questions without turning the story into an overt declaration.
“I had always loved this Jane Austen,” Oakley said. “She doesn’t announce that she’s writing a political manifesto, but she at the same time is like unpacking some really kind of knotty and subversive themes in this book.”
A More Naturalistic Vision of Regency Life
Oakley wanted the film’s visual style to reflect the difficult circumstances facing the Dashwood family. The story follows four women who suddenly lose their fortune and must find a way to support themselves. Caitríona Balfe plays their mother, while Bodhi Rae Breathnach portrays the youngest sister.
Rather than relying on the polished appearance often associated with Regency-era period dramas, Oakley pursued a more earthy, lived-in aesthetic.
She introduced the cast to Andrea Arnold’s Wuthering Heights and Kelly Reichardt’s Meek’s Cutoff, while creating playlists filled with violin music. The costumes also reflected the approach, with dresses marked by raspberry stains and soil.
Oakley wanted viewers to feel close to the characters rather than separated from them by the formality of a historical production.
“I was keen to kind of make a film where the characters didn’t feel at arm’s length. That they felt like human beings that we can kind of reach out and touch through the screen. And so this idea of everything being a little bit more undone kind of came in through that,” Oakley said.
She explained that the characters are dealing with genuine hardship and are not constantly concerned about their appearance or how others perceive them, particularly when they are away from visitors.
For Edgar-Jones, the approach offered an opportunity to experience Austen’s world through a perspective she had not encountered in previous adaptations.
Creed-Miles emphasized that the production was not intended to reject traditional Regency styling. Instead, the filmmakers sought to explore aspects of the characters’ private emotional lives that earlier screen portrayals had not fully examined.
“We were not trying to rebel against or go against the grain of Regency-era hair and makeup,” Creed-Miles said. “We were actually finding pockets of nuance to how these women express themselves in their interior lives that hasn’t actually been seen before in film.”
Working on the production also deepened Creed-Miles’ appreciation of Austen. The actresses had approached the author’s work from different starting points, and she believes that contrast reflects the film’s broader appeal.
“I think what’s nice about the fact that me and Daisy both had these different relationships to Austen before is that it kind of speaks to, I think, the success of the film and that it really is a movie for everyone, not just Austen fans, but also people that maybe haven’t read her books before,” Creed-Miles said.
She hopes the adaptation will encourage newcomers to discover Austen’s writing and help bring the author’s characters to another generation of audiences.
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