Meeting Dame Emma Thompson for tea seems like the perfect place to start this diary. An hour with her has been more useful than every book and radio programme and essay I’ve read about Austen in the last year. She answers my long list of questions so generously and thoughtfully. A few examples of her wisdom: 90 per cent of Austen is the casting; a good comedy editor will make or break it; we must ignore the temptation to over-score and let the dialogue speak for itself; I must prepare a document of additional dialogue so the language stays precise and the actors don’t “Regency ad-lib”; I have to make the stakes of marriage clear for a modern audience; I must not be scared of the Janeites (“They have the books. Let them enjoy the books.”).
As I leave, she gives me a big hug. “Mate, it’s gonna be brilliant.” True sisterhood.
11 June
The day I have been dreading. Cuts. Lisa (producer) reassured me by saying she thinks we can make cuts that are “surgical, with a scalpel” rather than “lopping great chunks out”.
We have to lose Lydia and Mrs Forster sea-bathing, but I’ve insisted we keep the sea-bathing machines. Devastatingly, we’re losing Mr Collins sneaking out of Longbourn down a drainpipe – a day of shooting for one moment of slapstick. Ongoing debate about whether we can keep Lizzy and Jane finding the Netherfield flushing toilet. There aren’t any original Georgian ones around and it will cost £15k to build. Discussion of whether £15k is too expensive for a joke. I think not, but then I have regularly lost much more, dignity-wise if not financially, to secure a laugh.
The Meryton Harvest Market is edging towards the guillotine. This was already a compromise on what I originally wrote, which was a Regency autumn fair with swings, puppet shows, wrestling, toffee apples and a fortune teller. Now it’s looking like it’s going to be one extra selling a marrow. Lisa cleverly suggested she look into our “livestock budget” to see if it might be cheaper to fill all of Meryton with a load of sheep being traded, as at least that will fill the frame and feel busy and agricultural.
All in all, today was not as bad as I thought it was going to be. Have my work cut out incorporating cuts, our director Euros’s notes, production notes and final editorial notes into new drafts by next Friday. Lisa as I leave: “I am afraid next week is going to be a week for you.”
21 June
Go see Loyle Carner at a very, very hot Hackney church. Paralytic woman drenched in sweat corners me to say she is obsessed with Pride and Prejudice and she hopes our adaptation doesn’t disappoint. No pressure.
23 June
We got Louis Partridge! We got Louis Partridge! My number-one choice for Wickham – a man who looks like he really could ruin your life. Hooray! I always forget how much casting feels like dating. When they turn you down, it makes you question everything about your show. When they say yes, it really does feel like they want to go out with you. I’m going out with Louis Partridge.
21 July
Spend the morning in London North Studios being shown racks and racks of beautiful costumes. Have already taken a shine to Mr Bennet’s embroidered dressing gown and plot to nab it at wrap. I sit in on a Bennet family rehearsal – Rufus (Sewell) talks about the importance of the scene in the book in which Mr Bennet recognises his own failings as a negligent father.
Lemonia for a cast dinner. Louis and I grill Rufus about hell-raising in Primrose Hill in the ’90s. I am put in between Louis and Daryl (McCormack) and Will (executive producer) later observes that I look very smug about it. Louis and I talk about Mary Oliver poetry; Daryl and I talk about Rome, where he is off to on a job after . Worry I was too forceful with my restaurant recommendations, a bad habit of mine. I just can’t bear the thought of Daryl McCormack having a sub-par carbonara.
I ask them what jobs they would have done if they weren’t actors. Louis, documentarian; Daryl, wildlife photographer; Emma (Corrin), primary school teacher. Night ends with Manda (Netflix executive producer), Lisa and I discussing the mesmerising shade of Daryl’s eyes when we realise he’s behind us in earshot, waiting for his Uber. I’m sure he’s used to it.
Emma Corrin, Olivia Colman and Freya Mavor take on one of the more famous families in literature. Now they’re in a WhatsApp group called The Bennet Bitches. Emma wears faille jacket, Burberry. Vintage skirt, The Arc London. Neck ruffle, Jil Sander. Jewellery, Cartier. Olivia wears silk shawl and gloves, Michael Kors Collection. Vintage jacquard jacket and skirt, Rellik. Shoes, Neous. Freya wears satin top, Celine. Vintage jacquard skirt, Rellik.
22 July
Read-through day. So useful for the writing process, because it’s the first time you hear humans saying your lines and the first time you can deduce what sounds natural and what sounds written. But also a horrible day for a writer, because the actors are new to the dialogue and only semi-performing while sitting down, so it can make everything feel a little flat. A friend of mine, who is a TV showrunner, says she hates read-throughs because it feels like everyone is reading from her diary “in a mocking voice”.
Do a little speech to kick things off and try not to be too mawkish, despite feeling overwhelmed with excitement and gratitude. I say it’s like looking at my fantasy football team, but I was allowed to select players from IMDB.
Episodes one to three go well – much better than I expected. Fiona Shaw’s formidable Lady Catherine a particular standout, but all of them are brilliant. We are so lucky to have each and every one of them.
23 July
Read-through of episodes four, five and six, all of us weeping in the last few scenes of six. Pull strange faces trying to hold back the tears as surely there is nothing more unbecoming than being visibly moved by your own script. Regency boot camp for the cast afterwards, followed by Netflix’s “respect workshop”. I can’t help but text Jamie (Demetriou) afterwards and ask what he learnt. He says the highlight was Jack (Lowden) being asked if it’s OK to date fellow actors from set. His reply: “I fuckin’ hope so ’cos I married one.”
28 July
Day one of shooting! At the Golden Parsonage in Hertfordshire, our Longbourn, where we essentially move into until December. The first scene is a very hungover Mrs Bennet walking through the garden with the Bennet sisters the morning after the Netherfield ball. I think we should have Olivia (Colman) seem notably nauseous, but Lisa thinks that’s overcooking it. We get one slightly vommy take for me.
Everyone paranoid about paps. I think we’ve managed to dodge them – one of the reasons we chose the Golden Parsonage is that all its surrounding land is private property.
Emma’s dog is here who is like a giant Beanie Baby. I have been assured he will be on set a lot.
Sister act. As Lizzy and Jane Bennet, Corrin and Mavor are far from straightfoward ingenues. Austen would approve. Emma wears three-piece suit and shirt, Schiaparelli. Boots, Neous. Tricolour gold and diamond earrings, Cartier. Freya wears pinstripe suit, Saint Laurent by Anthony Vaccarello. Cotton shirt with neck-tie, Emporio Armani. Tricolour gold and diamond earrings, Cartier.
1 August
Everyone falling more and more in love with Louis. Charlotte (head of costume) tells me he has been crocheting a little hat for his friends who are expecting a baby. And during the lunch break yesterday, he went into a nearby field to sit and play guitar.
Charlotte walks us through the costume rails – standouts include a playfully embroidered waistcoat for Lizzy, lots of icy blues for Jane, which suit Freya (Mavor)’s complexion perfectly. And a dress so beautiful for Lydia that Rhea (Norwood) has said she wants to be buried in it. I’m so glad we went for Charlotte and her eye for original textiles. So many of the fabrics date back to the 1800s.
Lisa has pointed out that we’ve got to change a line of Wickham’s. On a Ramsgate beach, he compares the colour of Georgiana’s eyes with the colour of the sea, but we’ve just cast Isabella, who has brown eyes. Lisa wonders if we keep it as is and if there’s a joke to be made about the colour of the Kent coastline.
Honey-glazed carrots for lunch today, which Euros has declared “a revelation”.
4 August
Fucking paps. They managed to get a photo of Emma and Freya’s first scene on the Longbourn roof. Apparently the photographer was hiding in a tree up to a mile away and still managed to get pictures! Most of them are of Emma and Freya chatting and on their phones between set-ups. My favourite comment under the article: “Lizzy Bennet would NOT have had a mobile phone. This is NOT historically accurate.”
At lunch, Jack and I stand in the drizzle eating cheesecake and discuss Darcy. He’s trying to get under the skin of him. I had the same thing when I first started writing Darcy – he’s a hard character to understand. Jack asks me why Elizabeth is attracted to him – I tell him that Darcy is capable; a man of action, rather than just words. Jack points out that he’s got servants that do everything for him, which is a fair point. I talk about how capability and reliability can be more than just putting up shelves etc.
Louis is as chivalrous as ever, standing up and offering me a chair and asking me about my weekend. “Like you’re his grandma?” Will asks flatly, when I boast of this later.
8 August
Shooting London scenes in Spitalfields today. More nuisance paps and people dangling out of windows taking videos. Lisa tells me that there’s one pap, called Ralph, who is always hanging about, whingeing to her that he can’t get good photos and they don’t sell for as much as they used to. “At this point I may as well add him to the catering numbers,” she mutters.
Poor Jack having to do a lot of silent staring out of carriage windows. Darcy really is such a hard part in so many ways. So unknowable and brooding for such a hefty portion of the story. Mostly mute, deep-in-thought acting for Jack this first month of filming. When I watch the rushes, I hear him say, “I’ve got nothing going on behind my eyes, I should have never taken this job,” as he is directed to get in and out of a carriage for the 100th time.
Jack Lowden’s Darcy: a 19th-century audition for Bond. Jack wears cotton shirt with ruffled collar and cuffs, Ann Demeulemeester. Vintage trousers, Costume Studio. Shoes, Ferragamo.
13 August
Hungover. Claude (set PA) gets me a fry-up and I save her the sausages as a thank you. We’re shooting the interiors of Hunsford today in a house near Shepperton. It is boiling hot and cloudy – the worst kind of weather. Jamie’s in today. He tells me that whenever he’s asked to do background Regency conversation, he turns to the person next to him and asks, “Is your father fond of horses?”
Nancy Meyers has posted on Instagram Stories about how she’s sick of seeing pap shots from our set and she wants Pride and Prejudice to be a surprise when it comes out.
Olivia, Emma and the Bennet sisters are all on a WhatsApp group called The Bennet Bitches.
19 August
Feel like Lizzy as we drive into our Pemberley location. My heart flutters – I am so glad that this is our Pemberley. It was always my first choice. It’s breathtaking, bucolic, epic and so, so romantic. I arrive just in time to see the final set-ups of Lizzy and Darcy’s unexpected meeting. It is the first time we see any softness between them, and it’s the first time we see the true Darcy rather than the carapace he presents to the world. We probably had more meetings about this scene than any other scene across the whole show. It’s the moment we have to see Darcy as a man; as a human, and not just a status. We have to see the heart and soul and loins under all his finery and front.
There were so many bad versions of this part of the story that I wrote and ended up in the bin – one of the more memorable ones was “the horny tree” draft, where Darcy shows Lizzy the oldest trees on the Pemberley estate and talks in cack-handed metaphors about how you can only see the true colour of the bark when you are close to it. Everyone hated it apart from Lisa. As we approach the house, we lament the loss of horny tree and choose which tree we would have used for that scene. She would have gone for a rather girth-y chestnut near unit base.
I stand on the terrace and watch the scene on Euros’s monitor. Jack and Emma’s performances are beautiful – halting, delicate, vulnerable. I think it will work really well, particularly in the vast grandeur of the surroundings. The last direction Euros calls out before they do their final take: “Remember Emma, he is the north to your south. Action!” This is why he is the perfect director for this job. Amongst many other things, he has a heart that understands true romance.
Lisa drives us to the hotel and, pleasingly, the Hovis advert music plays on Classic FM as we approach Harrogate. Wagamama for dinner. Good, obviously, but will forever mourn kare lomen after its cruel disappearance from the menu.
20 August
Daryl is shooting today, looking dashing in his double waistcoat. I wish boys dressed like this now. Although he tells me his britches were so tight, they split when he sat down on the first day of filming.
Siena and Saffron (playing the Bingley sisters) are gloriously bitchy in their scene today. It’s an iconic passage from the book, when Caroline feels so threatened by Lizzy’s surprise visit at Pemberley, she lists all the physical characteristics she dislikes about her to try to get close to Darcy, who instead swoops to Lizzy’s defence. Siena is so good at keeping Caroline on just the right side of catty, so it is enjoyable without becoming too panto. Isabella (playing Georgiana Darcy) also shines in her performance today – sweet without being saccharine. She’s been practising her piano on a keyboard in her trailer.
Lisa tells me that Ralph the pap was waiting with a camera, armpit deep in heather, at our remote filming location earlier this week. When Lisa asked who gave him a tip-off, he claimed he wasn’t tipped off, but rather his dad – by total coincidence! – had been in the Peak District and saw some signs for filming so told Ralph in case there was something for him to photograph. Ralph followed the signs and what do you know?! It was the Pride and Prejudice production. Funny how life goes, eh.
A love for all seasons. Colman and Rufus Sewell reimagine Mrs and Mr Bennet with a sparkling wit and – whisper it – new levels of romance. Olivia wears tweed opera coat, McQueen. Tuxedo trousers, Sacai. Pearl earrings and ring, Sophie Bille Brahe. Rufus wears wool coat, Saint Laurent by Anthony Vaccarello. Poplin shirt and wool trousers, Ferragamo. Vintage cravat, Costume Studio.
31 August
Turn 37. Pub, home, two birthday cakes, . Perfect.
3 September
Our first day fully bedded into Longbourn. All of us swooning over the paint colour on the cornicing and panels (aquatic blue). Chloë (director of photography) tells me that it’s a colour that suits wood, candlelight and skin.
The exterior of the house is still being bedecked with vegetation. The seasons and movement of a year are so important in Austen novels, but particularly in Pride and Prejudice. We’re leaning heavily on nature to help us tell that story. I desperately want to have a go on the cherry picker but Lisa forbids it for health and safety reasons.
Another baked potato for lunch. I can’t seem to opt for anything else. Baby pheasants hopping around the grounds. Get home to a belated birthday present from Aunty Susan – a picture book called A Guinea Pig Pride & Prejudice. Does what it says on the tin.
8 September
We’ve all descended on Rye to shoot Meryton scenes. Laura (executive producer) is here with her two gorgeous little girls who are extras in one of the scenes. They get to keep their bonnets.
Kitty and Lydia rushes are in and their chemistry is exactly what I had hoped it would be – so giggly and alive.
Lots of livestock for the market scenes, including baby goats, which is obviously heaven, but the baby goat handler makes it clear that she doesn’t approve of my incessant petting.
We’re shooting an absolutely enormous scene, about seven pages. I don’t know what I was thinking. So much blocking to do, so many characters coming in and out. Bree the dog, playing Charlotte Lucas (played by Jasmine Blackborow)’s dog, is here and none of us know why, she’s not in any of the Rye scenes.
22 September
Today I get to witness the utterance of the line: “It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife.” I often think of Jane Austen and what she would have made of all these interpretations and imaginings of her work. I sent Emma (Thompson) an email the night before we started shooting and she wrote a kind and thoughtful reply telling me that Jane would be by my side. “She was – well – a seer, a weird sister, a person who did what she could within the boundaries.”
Head to my favourite place, the costume truck, for a hang. They spray all the costumes with a mixture of vodka and eucalyptus to freshen them up because some of the fabrics are so delicate and old they can’t take detergent. Charlotte shows us a sketch for a fabulous Lady Catherine costume. All black with a high neck – she will look like an elegant crow.
Rufus believes actors should actually eat in eating scenes so this morning he had to get through countless sausages and a mound of buttered toast for multiple takes of a breakfast scene.
Dinner with my friend Lara who is interviewing Bonnie Blue tomorrow. She wants to find a new line of questioning. Apparently Bonnie is a jigsaw enthusiast, which has been overlooked thus far for obvious reasons.
25 September
Huge confrontation scene between Mr and Mrs Bennet today. Olivia likes shouting in scenes because she’s not a shouter in real life.
Head out for the evening, hop onto the Victoria line only to bump into Fiona on the same carriage. She introduces me to her lovely wife who is an economist. We talk about the importance of having a partner who is not in the same industry as you. Forever grateful that I didn’t end up with an actor or a writer. They are on their way to the Young Vic, I am on my way to Elizabeth Day’s book launch. I can’t find the party venue but know I must be close when I see both Ed Miliband and Mariella Frostrup heading in the same direction.
As Mr Wickham and Lydia Bennet, Louis Partridge and Rhea Norwood prove love-bombing, breadcrumbing and ghosting are far from modern affectations. Louis wears wool coat, Brunello Cucinelli. Shirt, Lemaire. Tuxedo trousers, Brioni. Vintage cravat, Costume Studio. Rhea wears silk dress with chain detail, McQueen. Top, stylist’s own.
29 September
Olivia and Rufus doing some fantastic drunk acting today. Mischievous and silly. Lisa tells a story about an actor who insisted on getting so pissed for a drunk scene that he scared the make-up crew and kept sending unit drivers out to get more booze. Finally Lisa said to him exasperatedly, “Can’t you just ?”
2 October
Jamie’s on fine Collins form today, adding all sorts of awkward noises into his scenes. He keeps making Hollie get the giggles, and Hollie has the most infectious laugh I’ve ever heard so it sets everyone off.
Sniffing around Jamie to get the tea on Charli xcx’s wedding but he is annoyingly classy and discreet.
11 October
Emma and Jack’s first kissing scene. I really don’t know how actors do this stone-cold sober in the broad light of day. There was a lot of discussion about whether they would have kissed in this scene. As my historical advisor Dr Fiona Stafford once sagely said to me during scripting, “They would have had all the same desires as us.” Jack and Emma ultimately decide it is the right moment for Darcy and Lizzy to kiss. “They’d be gantin’ for it,” Jack says. I laugh. “Sorry,” he says. “The Irish are romantics, the Scottish are pragmatic.”
At one point, Euros calls out to Emma: “Emma, slightly adjust your spencer,” referring to the short jackets women wore in Georgian England.
“Yer what?” Jack says.
“Spencer,” Emma tells him.
“Oh,” he says, still looking puzzled. “As in ‘Marks ’?”
13 October
Fiona is giving it some real welly today in Lady Catherine’s crowning scene. Terrifying. Golden leaves on all trees. Emma, Will and Laura will stop talking about despite me telling them that I have not yet watched it on catch-up.
14 October
Austen-mania has revved up again (does it ever rev down?) because Andrew Davies has announced he’s going to bring out the darker elements of and in new adaptations. The programme has asked if I want to come on and talk about it, but I’ve decided I’m not going to say anything about Austen until the show is out, otherwise everyone will be utterly sick of me.
Daryl is complimentary about my new perfume, which I will also write about in my own private diary, possibly in a pink glitter gel pen.
Jack does another non-speaking scene today in which he has to do lots of takes looking intrigued and deep in thought, and some takes where he looks intrigued and beguiled, so we have options. He laughs on his 10th take: “God, this is a silly job isn’t it?”
Mavor and Daryl McCormack: a Jane and Bingley for the ages. “I wish boys dressed like this now,” writes Alderton wistfully of McCormack’s breaches on set. Freya wears velvet dress, Ralph Lauren Collection. Gold and diamond earrings and pendant necklace, Rachel Boston. Daryl wears wool tail coat, cotton shirt, pleated satin collar, and wool trousers, Dior.
17 October
Head to the O2 to watch Little Simz in the Netflix box. I love Little Simz and have never seen her live, so am mega excited. Even happier to get there and see all the Bennet sisters draining the free bar, although strange for them to be not in corsets. Even stranger to watch them dancing to hip-hop. Emma (whose dialogue was sampled on Little Simz’s album Sometimes I Might Be Introvert) opens the show with the song they featured on. They march down the stage looking phenomenally cool in a pinstripe brown suit, performing their lines. We all scream and cheer until we are hoarse.
I ask Alice (Netflix executive producer) nosey questions about her love life, give unwarranted advice and list various men I could set her up with. Am reminded of something my agent Clare once said: “At some point, a woman discovers that there is a Mrs Bennet in all of us.”
27 October
Land early at Heathrow from LA where I’ve been for a week and head straight to set for proposal scene. I’m so happy to be back in cold, crisp, glorious English countryside in my big sheepskin coat. Olivia got everyone a waffle truck as a present.
For some reason, any time Lizzy runs, it feels too modern. I don’t know why. It’s hard to do period running. Those jogging arms feel like such a 20th century invention. After a few goes, they find the right Lizzy gait and it looks natural.
The proposal is perfect. I’m so glad I get to witness it behind a monitor, cup of tea in hand. Big silent sobs from me today. We are so, so lucky to have Jack and Emma.
Did some nice milling around and chatting at unit base with Jack and Rufus. Ask them about their most embarrassing pap moment. Jack says he was recently followed by a photographer when he was running in a park and became so self-conscious he panicked and did a “made-up stretch”. Rufus says he was photographed buying a frying pan which somehow became a headline.
3 November
Jamie’s last day. Sad to lose him and sad to lose his Collins. Both make me laugh so much, although I only want to have a pint with one of them. I give him his wrap present – a walnut cigarette case stuffed with Marlboro Golds. I thought it was a Regency gentleman present until I googled it and realised that cigarette cases were a Victorian invention. This is the refrain of my entire time researching historical details for the show. Almost we recognise now, the Victorians invented. Maybe Dickens next.
As Charlotte Lucas and Mr Collins, Jasmine Blackborow and Jamie Demetriou have some tricks up their sleeves. Improvising Regency conversation? Simply ask, “Is your father fond of horses?” Jasmine wears vintage jacquard corset and velvet hat, Rellik. Silk blouse and trousers, Ermanno Scervino. Veiled headband, Stephen Jones. Pearl earrings, Sophie Bille Brahe. Jamie wears trench coat and trousers, Issey Miyake. Vintage shirt and cravat, Costume Studio.
7 November
Filming the Meryton Assembly. Mortifying moment when I think Jack is waving at me really excitedly from behind a glass door and I wave back with equal enthusiasm, only to realise he is trying to get someone’s attention because he’d been locked in a vestibule and is needed on set.
17 November
I’ve broken my finger from pushing a child on the playground swings too vigorously (child known to me, not random child). Child fine. Four hours waiting in A&E for me to be told there’s nothing they can do but bind it and send me to the “specialist hand clinic” in Archway. Pat (set PA) tells me he broke his finger once and had to get put into his hand and shows me the X-ray. I think I’m being quietly dignified about the whole thing, until Lisa tells me, “There’s no point suffering in silence unless everybody knows about it.”
Bree’s last day. She barks on demand like a pro. “She’s always on her lines,” Lisa observes. We all clap her off as she trots off with her handler.
18 November
It’s suddenly turned bitingly cold and everyone’s wearing long johns under their jeans. Freya’s on her hobby horse again. We’ve had to reshoot some of it because in the last take, she looked like a jockey at Aintree for some reason.
19 November
Snow at Longbourn! I cannot believe it! Thank God the crew were all here. At about 7am, before we’d started shooting, it suddenly bucketed down with snow. The type of snow you don’t get in England – thick and blanket-y. The crew ran outside and filmed it all. It’s probably saved us tens of thousands of pounds in visual effects for the winter episode.
In a perfect twist of fate, today’s our Christmas lunch and we’re all in Christmas jumpers. Christmas music blasts from the catering vans and our plates are loaded up with roast potatoes, roast beef, brussels, gravy and cauliflower cheese (I think you really need the cauliflower cheese in a Christmas lunch and I’m not interested in debating it).
Very emotional goodbyes with the Bennet girls. I leave their wrap presents and cards in all of their trailers – an old black and white photo of the Golden Parsonage in a gold frame, so they’ll always have a piece of Longbourn. This loud, chaotic, special place that really had felt like our home for the last few months.
20 November
There is such a sadness and such an intimacy to these last days of a production. As you wind down, you gradually say goodbye to all the members of the cast until eventually there’s only one or two of them left. Only Olivia and Emma remain, and they’re doing their most emotional scene today. It was scheduled well, as they’re now holding the entire history of their characters’ stories in their heads, which massively enriches the emotion of their performances. More sobbing from me. Sobbing from all of us, actually.
Sad to say goodbye to Olivia, who has been an absolute joy on set. Always mucking in and being helpful. I know that’s the thing everyone says about her, so it feels so clichéd and luvvy-ish even typing it, but it’s true.
“Jack and Emma’s performances are beautiful,” writes Alderton. “Halting, delicate, vulnerable. It works particularly well in the vast grandeur of the surroundings.” Jack wears cashmere coat and tweed waistcoat, Loro Piana. Shirt, Favourbrook. Trousers, Brunello Cucinelli. Vintage cravat, Costume Studio. Cufflinks, stylist’s own. Emma wears minidress, Miu Miu. Sheer shirt, Phoebe English. Skirt with lace trim, Ermanno Scervino. Tights, Calzedonia. Slingbacks, Neous. Jewellery, as before.
21 November
I ask Emma if they mind that they’re spending their last day without any other cast. We’re filming lots of Lizzy walking on her own. They say it feels right, as so much of the show has been Lizzy trudging through the countryside. Emma likes that they’re ending as we began – the cameras following Lizzy on her own journey.
Emma really has held up the whole show. They’ve been in almost every day of the shoot and they always have so much energy, a smile for everyone; they’re always on their lines. They’ve never complained, even when they were so cold in the Peak District and had to walk around with a hot water bottle attached to them the next day. They’ve deep-dived into the book and embodied Lizzy so fully. A class act in every single sense.
Euros is presented with his wrap gift from the crew – they’ve secretly plotted with his husband to restore his old trombone back to its former glory. He is so delighted and surprised. Hoping for a performance at the wrap party.
It’s a cold and clear day and Will and I stand shivering in the middle of a field for Emma’s last scene – a tracking shot of Lizzy running. We do a few takes then Chris (first assistant director) bellows the sentence I’ve been dreading since we started: “That is a wrap on Pride and Prejudice.” I run over to Emma and squeeze the life out of them. “I’m so proud of you,” I say. “I’m so proud of ,” they reply. We’re both in tears. Lisa sidles over and tells us to pull ourselves together.
And we’re done!
Well. Nearly. Just 10 months of editing ahead…
Pride and Prejudice is on Netflix later this year.
Hair: Stelios Chondros. Olivia’s hair: Earl Simms. Make-up: Niamh Quinn. Olivia’s make-up: Polly Osmond. Grooming: Stefan Bertin. Nails: Megan Cummings. Tailor: Victoria Dolman-Nash. Set design: Dominika Opálená. Production: Bellhouse. With thanks to Freshlocations.com