Jane Austen: Rise of a Genius

Helen Fielding

Author

What does Jane Austen mean to you?

I shall be eternally grateful to Jane Austen because I stole her plot for Bridget Jones’ Diary and learned most of what I know about writing by trying to imitate her. She is my favourite author and the first novelist to write realistic portrayals of real women – with wit, intelligence irony and understanding. She’s an observer and social commentator, and an absolute master novelist.

Why does her writing still resonate today?

Her novels, which appear so lightly written, carry a huge understanding of human nature, a great sense of humour, an insight into character, particularly female characters, an irresistible unique voice, and ear for dialogue, a razor sharp skewering of character , excellent plotting . They are set in small worlds but bring a tremendous awareness of the wider world and time in which they were written – wars, politics, economics, sociology major issues (slavery being one) money, and the powerlessness of women – unless you happen to be a rich widow, or plucky enough to say no to Mr Darcy.

What character or novel do you most identify with?

Elizabeth Bennet. It was the first time I came across a woman in a’ literary’ novel – when I was about fifteen – who seemed like an actual real person. She is witty, intelligent, brave, decent, hilarious, ironic, moral, kind and timeless. My heroine.

Kate Atkinson

Author

What does Jane Austen mean to you?

That’s the most difficult question I could possibly answer, as I’m in my 70s now and I’ve been reading Jane Austen since I was in my teens. That is a lifetime of reading six books.

With Austen there is a cacophony of voices around her. She is castigated for being political or not political, or for being a feminist or anti-feminist. She’s seen through the lens of structuralism and formalism and gender critical studies.

I don’t think that we can appreciate her writing for what it is if we listen to all that noise. She’s such a nuanced writer that it takes time to – I’m not going to say study – but just to read those books is an immense effort of understanding. Particularly Mansfield Park but also Emma, there’s something very complex going on there that’s way beyond a nice film with frocks and bonnets.

How has Jane Austen influenced your writing?

I studied her novels for my degree, so I’ve endlessly analysed them and taken them apart. But to me, she’s one of the few writers that you can read again and again and again and every time you see something new. Every time you take it to pieces you put it back in a different way.

Jane Austen actually makes an appearance in my book, Life After Life. My protagonist, Her mother Sylvia says to her, over tea at John Lewis, “Perhaps you will never marry” – as if Ursula’s life was as good as over. “Would that be such a bad thing?” Ursula replies, tucking into a nice fancy. “It was good enough for Jane Austen.”

Why does Jane Austen still resonate today?

What sets her apart is her intelligence; you see it at work throughout all the books and you see it growing. She evolves, she rethinks, she does not write the same book again and again. And, quite possibly, her reading public would not have liked that – hence the rather dismal reaction to Mansfield Park.

Jane Austin survives the test of time as a novelist because has lots of very big questions. She understands the human heart, but she also understands the human mind and she knows they have to be unified. It shows in the way that she patents her books, that you can’t have emotional intelligence without intellectual intelligence. She knows that for a person to be happy, they have to be steady – that it’s not all about great drama.

Everybody approaches her differently, but I just think she knew how to write a great book. That’s the thing that lives on – she’s keyed into something very important to people.

Would you say her writing was informed by fairy stories?

When you look at the essential fairy story, it’s always about a girl who is outcast; who’s acquired a stepmother; who has been orphaned and then has to make her way through the deep, dark world avoiding all of the pitfalls and learn skills and tasks that will provide for her. She’s got to learn to weave the gold from the straw, she’s got to learn to avoid the poisoned apple. She’s constantly got to negotiate a path.

That’s exactly what women are doing in the 18th and 19th centuries, they are negotiating a path where everything becomes a kind of a quest, a challenge. That basic pattern is there, certainly in Mansfield Park, and in Persuasion and Sense and Sensibility. To be in the world and to defeat the world and remain true to yourself. It’s the movement of all literature from illusion or disillusion to enlightenment.

The happy ending is that you’ve been able to maintain your bravery, you have not tossed it away on a Mr Elton or a Mr Wickham. You haven’t married the wrong man, you have not been seduced by the wolf, you’ve swerved Wickham. You’ve understood all of those problems presented to you and you’ve overcome them, and therefore you deserve your happy ending. But you happy ending isn’t really in marriage. It’s in something more complex. It’s an economic stability. It’s in the happiness of the self. It’s in the understanding of the self.

Did Jane Austen deliberately choose not to marry?

18th century England is at war with France and America. Women are kept back from those battlefields, but they are giving birth at home, which is the ultimate female bloody battlefield. And a very high percentage of women at this time would die agonising deaths in childbirth.

Then you also look the effect of marriage and children if you want to be a writer. Are you going to make your life doubly, terribly difficult for yourself? You can’t presume to know Jane’s mind but she must have had an inkling.

Tell us something else about Jane Austen

Her first publisher Edgerton was a publisher of military books, he wasn’t the correct publisher for her books. But John Murray is a star – he’s like a celebrity. He’s published Byron.

Who else would you want to go to? If you’re going to look for a new publisher, go to the top. Go to the one everyone recognises as a name, as a powerhouse. And so Jane does because she has readers, she has brass neck, she has nerve. The fact that she goes to Murray is very indicative that she knows her worth at this point in time.

She negotiates with him and she dictates her terms. And I think that’s really emblematic of how strong she now is. She doesn’t make terribly good contracts, but nonetheless she is saying, you need to publish me because I’m good. The recognition of being good is very powerful, and Murray in turn recognises this. He knows he’s got a bestseller on his hands in Jane Austen.

Dr Paula Byrne

Writer

What does Jane Austen mean to you?

Jane Austen is, to me, an ever-unfolding revelation. She is not the prim, sheltered spinster of literary myth, but a bold, worldly observer, a writer of profound psychological depth and wicked wit. Her novels, so often mistaken for genteel romances, pulse with irony, ambition, and social critique. Through her, I see the brilliance of a woman who understood the games of power, the constraints of gender, and the subtle rebellions of everyday life. Whether in the sharp exchanges of Elizabeth Bennet, the quiet endurance of Anne Elliot, or the mischievous spirit of Mary Crawford, Austen’s heroines remind us that the domestic is never merely domestic—it is the very fabric of human experience. To read her is to encounter, again and again, a mind that is as modern as it is timeless.

Why does her writing still resonate today?

Austen’s genius lies in her ability to capture universal truths about human nature—love, ambition, folly, and self-discovery—through the microcosm of everyday life. Her world may be set in Regency England, but her themes are eternal. We still recognize the social climbers, the charming rogues, the misguided romantics, and the quiet heroines who find strength in their own integrity.

Her sharp, satirical eye exposes the absurdities of social pretension and hypocrisy in a way that feels strikingly modern. In an age of online image-making, would Austen not delight in the influencers and self-important figures of today, much as she did with characters like Mr. Collins and Sir Walter Elliot?

And then, of course, there is love. Austen’s romances endure not because they are fairy tales, but because they are deeply earned. Her heroines must grow, must learn to see themselves and others clearly, before they can find happiness. That journey—of self-awareness, resilience, and transformation—is what keeps us returning to her pages. Austen does not simply offer escapism; she offers insight, wit, and the quiet reassurance that, in the end, character matters more than fortune.

What character or novel do you most identify with?

If I had to choose just one, I would say I feel a deep connection to Anne Elliot from Persuasion. Anne is often overlooked—by her own family, by society—but she possesses a quiet strength, an intelligence, and an emotional depth that make her one of Austen’s most compelling heroines. She understands loss, regret, and the weight of past decisions, yet she does not wallow. Instead, she grows, becoming more self-assured, more willing to claim her own happiness.

Persuasion is Austen’s most mature novel, written when she herself had endured life’s disappointments but had not lost hope. It is a story of second chances, of love that deepens rather than fades. I find in Anne a heroine who embodies resilience and grace, someone who listens and observes but ultimately finds her voice.

That said, I also have a soft spot for Mary Crawford in Mansfield Park—sharp, witty, and too modern for her time. Though Austen does not reward her with a happy ending, she is an endlessly fascinating character, reminding us that intelligence and charm do not always align with moral clarity.

Austen’s characters feel so real because they are never one-dimensional. On any given day, I might see myself in the playful mischief of Elizabeth Bennet, the ambition of Emma Woodhouse, or even the quiet reflection of Fanny Price. That is Austen’s enduring magic—she gives us characters who, like us, are complex, evolving, and deeply human.

Cherie Blair

Human Rights Lawyer

What does Jane Austen mean to you?

Jane Austen is a brilliant writer who expertly captures human nature with wit and insight. Her exploration of love, marriage, and societal expectations is timeless, and her work continues to inspire me as a woman navigating similar challenges.

Why does her writing still resonate today?

Austen’s writing endures because it tackles universal themes—love, class, and identity—that still feel relevant. Her characters’ struggles with societal norms and personal growth in the late 18th century are still as relatable and thought-provoking in the 21st century.

What character or novel do you most identify with?

Like many people my first Austin novel was Pride and Prejudice and so Elizabeth Bennett remains a firm favourite . Like her, I value independence, self-awareness, and challenging societal expectations. I love too the depiction of her relationship with the other women characters particularly her sisters and her friend Charlotte Lucas.

Candice Carty-Williams

Author

What does Jane Austen mean to you?

Jane Austen did what she wanted to do. She has shown me that through her characters and her way of living. She makes me feel like I can always do what I want to do.

She lived in a time when everything was about marriage, childbirth, being a wife and then dying, and she rejected that. That’s important to me as a woman in 2025, but also as someone who grew up understanding that as a Black woman you’re supposed to be the person that people want you to be.

Seeing all of her different female characters definitely moulded me as a writer. It’s understanding that your female characters can be strong, they can be sensible, they can be smart, they can be emotional – or they could also be none of those things. But they’re all valid and they all have a sense of person.

There is also something so incredible about having endlessly distinct characters written by one person, who’s holding all of those different attributes in her head. It’s crazy.

How did she influence your writing?

When you pick up a pen (or open a laptop as I did in 2020) you think about your characters and what they’re going to say, and what they’re going to say about the time that you’re living in. For me, I’m writing about a Black woman who is living in a primarily white world. Jane Austen is writing about a woman who is living in a money world who doesn’t have money. So we’re both outsiders looking in on a society that isn’t necessarily for us.

Jane Austen speaks to me, and to women who are determined to not care about what other people think. As a woman, you are taught always to care about everything all the time, and it’s exhausting. She taught me to say what you’re going to say, because people either will or they won’t like it, but you’re still able to do what you’re going to do.

If you make people laugh, they’re going to listen. That’s what I wanted to do in Queenie, and that is what Jane Austen did throughout her career: she created spectacle and fun and humour and amazing characters that you could see yourself, or I can see someone I know in that person. She was amazing at capturing what was around her.

Tell us about the significance of Austen’s novel Mansfield Park

Seeing the cover of this book, or seeing Mansfield Park as it is today, means very little. But back then, the book was a statement of intent – it was there to educate, to show that Lord Mansfield was somebody who took a stand [against the slave trade], and that Jane Austen was an ally in that stand.

The Bertram family do not want to engage [with Fanny’s questions] about the slave trade, nobody wants to engage with it. I don’t know if it’s a matter of wanting to – people living in that time didn’t necessarily have the language or the understanding, or felt that difficult things are best left unsaid.

There is so much injustice in the world, but the slave trade is one of the biggest horrors of existence. And so how do you look at that? How do you engage in that? It doesn’t feel like it’s part of the conversation, it feels like a no-go area because what do you say, how do you excuse it?

Jane Austen was bringing it to people for the first time in [the same way] that I’m often presenting a story that people maybe haven’t seen, because I’m a Black woman writing about Black people. But at the time she was writing no one had understood these experiences at all – not even just in the sense of seeing them captured in literature or plays.

Mansfield Park is clearly political. We’re talking about the things that are not said, and that is what politics is. Queenie is about the unsaid actions towards Black women. No one was saying it at the time, and I was desperate to understand it, to know that I wasn’t going mad.

The politics of the slave trade in Mansfield Park are not the same. But we can understand that here is somebody who is trying to put out into the world that the slave trade is something that needs to be discussed because it’s not okay, because there are consequences, and because what is happening is abhorrent.

So, of course, it’s a political work in a political framework of saying we need to look at this and pay attention to this. And once again, she’s saying it in literature. She’s not saying it in passing – this isn’t a conversation that she’s having in a letter to her sister. This is a conversation that she’s fictionalising and immortalising.

A voice is enough. The bravest and boldest thing that anyone can do is to exercise what they know. And especially Fanny Price, who steps into that power and finds herself. Austen is giving us her political beliefs through all these women who end up – however weak to start with – being so strong. This is a woman who is leading the charge in saying what literally nobody has said before.

What do you think is her legacy?

One thing we understand and admire about Jane Austen is that she is going to fight, and she’s going to fight to the very end. She’s going to go out laughing and knowing that she has never ever been silenced.

She’s always done what she’s wanted to do within the realms of – in fact, bursting outside the realms of – what she was always told or understood that she, as a woman who was quite ordinary, was going to achieve. But she did not have ordinary opinions and she was going to make sure that everybody knew them and read them right up until the end.

Jane Austen leaves behind the sense that women can be anything, do anything and say anything. She wasn’t concerned with leaving behind money or even children or having a husband. She was concerned with leaving her voice and we are still obsessed with it, 250 years later.

Dr Paddy Bullard

Professor of English Literature, University of Reading

What does Jane Austen mean to you?

It’s just the sheer pleasure of reading the novels that gives Austen her main meaning to me, before anything else she might represent. It’s a pleasure that’s shareable, because she appeals to such a wide readership.

Why does her writing still resonate today?

Because it is so freshly modern. Austen is the first novelist who belongs unmistakably to the epoch we live in today. She speaks to us almost like a contemporary. Her ‘free indirect’ style – where an observational narrative voice is taken over in turn by the consciousness of the people it describes – is an extraordinary leap forward for literary technique. What’s most remarkable about Austen’s modernism, though, is that it doesn’t emerge from a self-consciously progressive culture – from some enlightened metropolitan ferment, or from an academic hothouse. It’s naturalized, you could say: it comes from a vernacular world that is rural and provincial, belonging to specific landscapes and environments. This isn’t a fashionable way of looking at Austen. It shares a lot with the sentimental and parochial views of her nineteenth-century readers. But I believe it gets to the heart of her artistic project.

What character or novel do you most identify with?

I’m the father of three teenagers, so the characters I’m closest to are Austen’s dads. But it’s the opposite of identification. They’re a mortifying bunch. I do feel exhilaration, though, at the subtlety and skill with which Austen stitches them up. Mr. Bennet in Pride and Prejudice and Sir Thomas Bertram in Mansfield Park are studies in fatherly negligence. One is sarcastic and passive-aggressive, the other stiff and venal. In Emma the hypochondriac Mr. Woodhouse is an insufferable drip, barely able to knot his own cravat. But then the father in Persuasion, Sir Walter Elliot, goes beyond social satire. He has a darker quality, a hollowness. Viciously narcissistic, as thick as the Baronetage, Sir Walter slights and smothers his daughter Anne, the best of Austen’s heroines. No dad should be asked to identify with him.

Greg Wise

Actor

What does Jane Austen mean to you?

Jane Austen is the reason I am with my wife of 30 years now.

Why does her writing still resonate today?

She completely understands the human condition. What it is to be alive. It doesn’t make any difference to us, the reader, that we are being shown a world in the early part of the 19th century – all the issues, woes, joys, frustrations, agonies of her characters resonate to us across the centuries, as we are still feeling the self-same things today. That is her genius. That is why we constantly revisit her world.

What character or novel do you most identify with?

Oddly… John Willoughby in “Sense & Sensibility” – as that was the character I was so honoured to have portrayed in Ang Lee’s film.

Colm Tóibín

Author

Why does Jane Austen’s writing still resonate today

I think it’s irony. Jane Austen can see a scene, and she can give you a sense that you’re actually in the room. So all of this is being done for the amusement of the reader.

Jane Austen doesn’t spell things out. She slowly brings you in. This idea, we could call it a third person intimate where, as the reader, you’re given a very close study of what somebody sees, feels, hears, remembers, notices… so that you, as the reader, will slowly be pulled into that person’s consciousness in an immersive way. You can really only do it with one character in, say, Pride and Prejudice or Persuasion or Mansfield Park and the other novels. This is what Jane Austen is refining – the idea of a single mind, or what a single mind can do.

Was Jane Austen a political writer?

I think one way we can read Jane Austen is as a political novelist. She was constantly alert not merely to the day to day things, but also the large questions of class and movement in England, and she found ways of describing or dramatising it, which are not always obvious.

Part of Austen’s genius is that she was not writing a pamphlet or making a speech in Parliament. She was describing the rich inner life of the mind – of the intelligence, of the noticing individual – that eventually made its way into great political change. What other way was there to make these images clear than through the novel? It wasn’t as though it was happening in opera and it wasn’t necessarily happening in poetry. It certainly wasn’t happening in portraiture. But her novels managed to create an extraordinary sense, not only a felt life in the protagonists, but also of sharp, intelligence-packed wit, knowledge.

How has Austen inspired future generations of writers?

I think the project in the 19th century was to make public the idea that women’s imagination and women’s minds were not just immensely subtle and graceful, but sharp with enormous integrity and seriousness. I think it was what the inner life was like for characters in Jane Austen’s novels, that made its way into further novels.

You can just see the influence in George Eliot – the two sisters in Middlemarch, one who’s more sharply intelligent and the other more graceful – or in Portrait of lady with a penniless young woman facing her destiny. You can see that an infinite number of other novels and stories that are being written from Jane Austen novels, because there were no other images available of how women thought and felt.

How has Jane Austen influenced your writing?

I think any novelist who has a young woman at a dance has to think about Jane Austen. If you have the possibility of a young woman from a certain class in an Irish town and someone comes in from a higher class, then It’s a gift. And if you don’t take it, there’s something is wrong with you.

In Brooklyn, Jim Farr looked as though he was stepping forward to ask Eilis to dance, before imperiously overlooking her. That was Darcy’s schtick and it was the fun of inserting for just a moment, a little homage to Jane Austen.

Tell us something else about Jane Austen

Part of the power of the Austen books is that they work with folktale. For example Mansfield Park, the idea is there was a girl who was sent away from her family into the house of a stepmother or a step aunt, and they were cruel and didn’t invite her to the party. It’s pure Cinderella. And, of course in Pride and Prejudice, there was a beautiful dark prince and one day, he was offered a choice between three women. But there was a fourth choice standing to the side, and she was forbidden from entering the room.

Bee Rowlatt MBE

Writer

What does Jane Austen mean to you?

For me, Jane Austen is the patron saint of women writers because she embodies the struggles and sacrifices of a creative life.

Why does her writing still resonate today?

Austen’s writing will always resonate because it is technically exquisite and very funny.

What character or novel do you most identify with?

I will forever be in love with the explosive scene where Lizzie Bennet stands up to the bullying Lady Catherine, insisting that “we are equal.” It’s so intense that I can’t read it sitting down.

Dr Louise Curran

Professor in Romanticism and 18th Century Literature, University of Birmingham

What does Jane Austen mean to you?

Different things at different stages of my life. As a teenager, I read her novels for the will-they-won’t-they romantic plots and loved the wit and vitality of characters like Elizabeth Bennet. Now I value her for how well she writes about complex emotional and psychological states – loneliness, regret, flirtation. Most consistently of all, though, I love her brilliant, subtle humour.

Why does her writing still resonate today?

She’s endlessly re-readable on many different levels. You can read for sheer romantic escapism and for some of the best comic writing in the English novel tradition. Underlying this humour is also the appeal of her satirical side — she skewers pompous and vain characters like no one else and that is infinitely satisfying.

What character or novel do you most identify with?

I don’t exactly identify with Fanny Price, but I find her and the novel Mansfield Park more intriguing as I get older. She’s the only one of Austen’s characters that we are introduced to as a child and the way in which she is overlooked and somewhat neglected at this early age shapes her development. In many ways she is Austen’s most difficult and, ultimately, unlovable character but I find this raises some really interesting questions about novel-writing and empathy: who are the characters we empathise with or pity most? How do they earn our regard? What might be the difficulties or predicaments that Austen’s poses to us in terms of our intimacy with fictional—and, by extension—real-life people? I didn’t actually like the novel when I first read it, but it’s grown on me over the years.

Admiral Lord West

First Sea Lord 2002-2006

What does Jane Austen mean to you?

She epitomises Englishness of a bygone era painting a vivid picture of society some 200 years ago. She relentlessly exposed the female condition of the period regarding reliance on men to further their status and wealth.

Why does her writing still resonate today?

The stories are as enthralling today as they were 200 years ago and she relentlessly exposes peoples weaknesses without resorting to cruelty or profanity.

What character or novel do you most identify with?

Mr Knightly in Emma as he exhibits all of the virtues that are inculcated in the Navy. Duty, steadfastness, determination and a quiet heroism.

Ken Loach

Director

What does Jane Austen mean to you?

The delight in discovering such beautiful and well balanced prose and the joy in recognising the people whom she describes.

Why does her writing still resonate today?

Her observations remain as perceptive and insightful today as they were when they were first written.

What character or novel do you most identify with?

Persuasion.

Tom Bennett

Actor

What does Jane Austen mean to you?

International fame, fortune and critical acclaim on top of a never-ending supply of jet set parties and Faberge eggs! (I’m on a poster with Kate Beckinsale!!!)

Why does her writing still resonate today?

225 years ago she was 225 years ahead of her time. She had an exquisite understanding of what it is that makes us human, our strengths, our weaknesses, our wants, desires…and no one threw around shade like Austen.

What character or novel do you most identify with?

Sir James Martin because he’s a rich, useful idiot like me…just without the rich or useful bit!

Dr Priya Atwal

Community History Fellow, University of Oxford

What does Jane Austen mean to you?

I grew up reading Austen’s novels as a teen and enjoyed the strong, yet flawed female characters that she brought to life on the page. Even now as an adult, I feel that I can enjoy recognising something new about the foibles of human society through her witty words, every time I pick up one of her books. As a historian, I also appreciate more and more how Austen grappled with not just with the relative triviality of polite society, but also some of the most serious issues of her day: including empire-driven consumerism, the slave trade and financial speculation. Working on this series has been an eye-opener for me, the polemical aspects of Austen’s works feel as though they’ve been far too under-played till now!

Why does her writing still resonate today?

In many ways, the roots of our British society today live in Austen’s world: from the changing role of women in society, to the increasingly capitalist, global economy that she witnessed coming into being during her lifetime. There is so much crossover from her era to ours. Yet her writing has a lightness and joy to it, that makes it so engaging, particularly when she deals with matters of the heart and family. I think for women everywhere, who are striving to make their own way in the world, but also battling against entrenched expectations that you must find a good husband and settle down to have children, her novels contain so much wisdom and experience. They can feel just as relevant to a young woman in London or in Delhi, for that very reason.

What character or novel do you most identify with?

My family always tease me for being most like Elizabeth Bennett, thanks to my fondness for books and long muddy walks! I have a tendency to agree, as I also enjoy her somewhat fierce, stubborn nature – which is perhaps a blessing and a curse! The tension between her and her friend, Charlotte Lucas, is so interesting too, especially the way they represent two very different approaches to life: to chose a life of comfort or stability without much passion involved, or to opt for a less stable path in order to have the chance to live a life of greater meaning – both are options that women often have to ponder over in today’s world.

Charity Wakefield

Actor

What does Jane Austen mean to you/ why does her writing still resonate today?

Jane Austen’s legacy to me is that she used writing to make change, by observing the female experience so brilliantly, that everybody wanted to read about it. She continues to inspire women to write today, and I still find her a contemporary, funny and engaging read. She is relevant some 200 years after the fact of writing, it reverberates still.

It’s still rare to read female characters that are as fully rounded, surprising, and complex as hers. There are fewer still that exist in combination with other female stories, that aren’t framed by a man’s story, or are only there to look at and not be listened to. Her exploration of sisterhood in her work was remarkable, due to her lived experience.

She was in many ways an early documentarian herself. Austen’s exposures the cruelty of life as a woman in the early 1800’s. The exploitation and legally supported abuse of women, in and out, of marriage. The lack of consideration for women’s wants and needs. The patronisation and infantilisation of women. The hardship and danger of pregnancy, pregnancy loss, multiple births. The lack of structural legal support, or ability to properly affect political change. It’s all there in her books, in which she writes with spark and wry humour. It came from her own steadfast independence in the face of destitution. Her understanding of social convention, the duality of her comedic love for the observation of fripperies, and her deep seeded hatred of the unfairness of it. She gave her everything in her work. That, to me, is acutely inspiring.

She shows us that to have an idea, to action that idea, to see it through, to live through adversity and to still stay on your own path, even if the rest of the world seems built to oppose your trajectory, to practice good communication, to listen to others, to observe the world, to be brave enough to shine a light on what needs to change, is worth it.

Her work was revolutionary. She says things in her work that many women can relate to now. That they can be supported by and feel seen by. That I, personally, feel seen by. Her legacy is about finding your authentic voice, and using it well. I hope this documentary will carry the torch for that legacy, and that its audience will feel galvanised by it, as I am.

What character or novel do you most identify with and why?

I played Marianne Dashwood in BBC’s Sense and Sensibility, and although I was much younger, there is still so much in her that I identify with, and I still think about that character! She was joyous, even though she sometimes ran into problems!

John Alexander the director, wanted to portray the 3 girls as robust, free willed and real. He had three daughters and wanted to represent their zeal, their zest for life. John’s collaboration with Sean Bobbit (DP) resulted in a totally new style for Austen adaptations. It felt fresh, dangerous, fly on the wall, and elemental. They, documentary-like, captured Austen’s love of the rawness of the countryside, her intimate knowledge of sisterhood, her life experience as a bereaved daughter and a young woman, struggling to keep up with convention. Marianne carries a freedom that Jane never had.

Whilst the particulars of Marianne’s story are far from my own life, I definitely share her emotional sensitivity, (and / or sensibility!), and her idealism, love of the outdoors, creativity, love of music, need to feel engaged and alive, and do a hundred things at once. To play Marianne was tremendously freeing. A character who is uncensored, with such a zest for life, a love of nature and interest in other people. When I’m feeling my best, it’s that heart-free feeling.