When the red carpet walks are done, the lights are up on the premieres, the interviews are all completed, and the Q&As have wrapped, “Sense and Sensibility” star Esmé Creed-Miles has big plans. She’s going to watch “Sense and Sensibility.” The other one.
Before there was Georgia Oakley’s earthy, enthralling new spin on Jane Austen’s debut novel, there was Ang Lee’s 1995 standard-bearer of an adaptation. (OK, there have been many adaptations of the 1811 novel, but Lee’s version, starring Kate Winslet and Emma Thompson, who also wrote the script, has long been hailed as the best and brightest.)
But Creed-Miles, who stars in Oakley’s film as Marianne Dashwood (the Winslet role) has not yet seen it. She’s eager to change that, though. And what better way than alongside her on-screen sister, Daisy Edgar-Jones, who takes up the role of elder sister Elinor (the Thompson role)?
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“Me and Daisy want to sit down and do an Austen day when this is done and just cuddle up in our pajamas and watch all of them,” Creed-Miles told IndieWire on Zoom the morning after the film’s big Los Angeles premiere. “I, honestly, have not had a second to watch a movie the past few weeks.”
Missing out on the Lee wasn’t by design, and it probably ended up helping her breakout turn in the long run. “I’m a big Emma Thompson and Kate Winslet fan,” she said. “For some reason, that movie passed me in my adolescence or movie-watching career, and I don’t know why. But then when it came around to making this, I was like, ‘Don’t want to be intimidated by what they did.’ So, I just put it aside a little bit.”
When asked what her relationship was like with the author’s entire oeuvre, the Brit zagged when I expected her to zig. “I didn’t really [have one] before making this film, and I think that’s what’s special about this movie,” she said. “I joked last night that Alix Earle — I hope — will love this movie. She’s this internet personality and she said recently in an interview she doesn’t read books. Honestly, I thought that was kind of funny.”
Creed-Miles, does, however, read books and has been a passionate reader for most of her life. “I love books and I love literature, and when I was growing up, I was a big Dickens fan,” she said. “‘Waverley’ is one of my favorite novels, this grand epic romance that’s set in a revolution, and it’s a similar time period to when Austen was writing. I was a little more drawn to the gothic and the dramatic, maybe like Marianne would have been.”
And, much like her free-wheeling and positively punk Marianne, she’s not overly precious about it. “I’m not a book snob. I think that some people aren’t exposed to books or reading in the same way that I had the privilege,” she said. “I grew up in a household of books, and lots of people don’t grow up in a household of books or don’t get to go to brilliant schools or don’t get to have poetry or literature in their lives. I think a lot of being cultured is about exposure and about encouragement and about having people in your life that are teaching you about things.”
She added, “I’m a firm advocate for films being something that can reach people from all walks of life. I think this movie, hopefully, will bring Austen to this generation in a way that maybe they don’t know about her or haven’t been exposed to her.”
But while Creed-Miles didn’t come of age on Austen, her affection for the material is now quite profound. “Now that I’m not old, but older than, I don’t know, 15, when you start reading these kinds of books, I can really appreciate the little family observations and the kind of social witticisms [she wrote about],” Creed-Miles said. “Now I’m like, ‘Bloody hell, she’s a genius.’ Her stories are gripping without having to have all of these crazy things going on. I think that’s a testament to how well she understands people and their interior lives.”
Creed-Miles, it seems, now carries with her a deep appreciation and understanding of Austen herself, the kind of connection that might be stronger because of when she first forged it.
“So, now I have a personal, emotional, strangely deep relationship with Austen, where I almost feel like we’re in this odd spiritual conversation with not just all the women that have explored previous iterations of the film, but Austen herself,” she said. “It feels like you’re having a conversation through generations of work, and that is really beautiful. … There’s a meme that circulates that I love that says, ‘Austen is just, like, people going to each other’s houses and drinking tea.’ It’s funny, and it makes me laugh, but it’s actually true. And even amidst that simplicity or embracing that kind of simplicity, you still get these really rich lives and these really engrossing plot lines. Those things are very timeless.”
Oakley’s take on the material, like Lee and Thompson’s, doesn’t stray too far from the author’s original intent and plotting. As ever, “Sense and Sensibility” follows the lives and loves (and the miracles and misfortunes) of the Dashwood family, including pragmatic eldest daughter Elinor, wild child middle sister Marianne, charming kid sister Margaret (Bodhi Rae Breathnach), and their beatific mother (Caitríona Balfe).
When their father passes away, the well-off Dashwoods are met with a common calamity: their lives (and their fortunes) are no longer their own. That all belongs to the girls’ elder half-brother (and his scheming wife), who promptly kick the other Dashwoods out of hearth and home, and straight into a downgraded life in a Devonshire cottage. Both helping and hurting? The elder sisters’ romances with good (George MacKay as Edward Ferrars) and bad men (Frank Dillane as John Willoughby).
“I also think that it’s a really nice opportunity to not only entertain people, but also remind them of some of the parameters that were placed on women’s lives a couple hundred years ago,” Creed-Miles said. “And maybe it could prompt a reflection about the things that we want to protect in our lives now and the things that have changed for us, and also the things that haven’t.”
While uptight Elinor excels at hiding her feelings for the similarly taciturn Edward, Marianne goes wild (nearly feral, really) when new neighbor Willoughby saves her from physical injury (literally sweeping her off her feet and a wincing ankle). Elinor and Edward circle each other, but Marianne and Willoughby are instantly inseparable. Away from the usual prying eyes of the upper crust, the two carouse across the moors, undone and free in a way we don’t normally associate with Austen heroines.
That concept also translates into Marianne’s look, which has proven divisive in early glimpses of the film (an Austen lady with her hair down? good heavens!), but offers a smart, immersive element in Oakley’s film. It helps us get to know Marianne better, more intimately, and it’s not as incongruous to the time as some might think.
“It was really organic,” Creed-Miles explained of finding Marianne’s look. “We were doing different hair and makeup tests and we had pictures of her hair down and pictures of her hair up. My hair is dark and it was a little dirty and, obviously, they weren’t showering all the time back then, so it would have been greasy and a little dirty. They were a little grubby, probably. They probably didn’t smell great. They’re probably getting a bath, if that, once a week. I’ve seen a lot of comments on it being like, ‘Her hair is so dirty.’ I’m like, ‘They didn’t have shampoo!'”
Seeing Creed-Miles in character with her hair down struck a chord with the team. “We did some research after seeing these images of her hair down, it felt like there was something there,” she said. “We found out that women of that time, before they came of age, had their hair down, which was really interesting to us. There’s this expectation that the portraiture captures how these women existed in their daily lives, and I don’t think that’s fully accurate. It would be almost as if they made a movie about 2026 in 200 years, everybody looked like they were at the Met Gala.”
It also adds a fresh dimension to the Dashwoods’ new lot in life. They go from a grand estate, filled with endless luxuries and a full staff, to a stone cottage that requires they attend to their own chores. They’re not going to be turned out as if going to a ball or hunting party. Those days are over.
“These women didn’t have full staff to do their hair and makeup every day, like the women that you see in portraits,” she said. “Me and Daisy wore not a single drop of makeup in the whole movie. And we were actually really intentional about being authentic to the time period. I think it sparked a really interesting conversation about hair and makeup in film generally. As much as we adore period drama, we wanted to try and do something different and humanize these people. And there would have been girls rebelling against social etiquette back then, like, there would now. And there’s something even inherently rebellious and punk about the fact that Austen was writing, full stop.”
Now that’s a subject close to Creed-Miles’ heart. The actress (and writer and director and singer and songwriter, her skills run the gamut) is the daughter of fellow actors Samantha Morton (just look at her face!) and Charlie Creed-Miles. She’s also the last person on Earth to balk at any sort of “nepo baby” discourse, and is eager to chat about the ways in which the creative industries need to embrace the kind of rebellious spirit of someone like Jane Austen writing about what she did, when she did.
“The conversation around privilege in creative arts is really important, and I also think some of those conversations miss the thing that has the real privilege around it,” she said. “Obviously, it depends on the level of exposure you have and the power structures that you are a part of, literally speaking, through your birth. But connections, knowing people? You have to show up and you have to work really hard regardless. But the thing that gives you that ability to show up, I think, is having a safety net through whether your parents can support you, if it doesn’t work out or not.”
The Dashwoods had to reorient their entire lives after financial disaster, ultimately being partially saved by some moneyed cousins, but that’s not the sort of thing available to everyone. And, as Creed-Miles sees it, that really impacts the kind of art we get.
“The social body is being starved of diversity when it comes to storytelling and 90 percent plus of the UK creative workforce is made up of people who come from financially stable homes,” she said. “It actually negatively impacts the kinds of stories [we get] and the width and the depth. It flattens them, and that’s really an important conversation to be had. When people talk about seeing or witnessing so many young people coming into the arts and having parents do the same thing, I don’t think that’s a new thing. I think that has always been the case. We look at artists now that we revere and we forget that their parents were also doing the same thing.”
Like her own Marianne, Creed-Miles is wily and smart and outspoken, and her passion stems from real experience. She knows what she’s benefitted from, but that doesn’t mean she doesn’t want the whole thing to be different, to be better.
“I think it’s so heightened now, because there’s this growing conservatism happening across the UK, across America, and that shrinks and diminishes the quality of life for people, so that they can’t access the arts and there isn’t government funding and the schools aren’t getting enough money and there are no programs for young people and university and college educations are too expensive,” Creed-Miles said. “It means the only people left doing it are the ones that have always been doing it.”
Also, much like Marianne, Creed-Miles’ affection and pride in her own family are unshakeable. How wonderful that she’s enjoying this breakout moment, just as her mother is being hailed for her incredible work as Circe in “The Odyssey.”
“Well, I’m just so proud of her and it’s nice to see her getting— there’s an internet phenomena around it!,” she said. “People are really obsessed with her and her performance in it. I think that she’s been contributing so many amazing performances to the canon of, especially UK, film for such a long time. So, it’s, like, she’s getting her … is it getting her dues?”
I confirmed it is. And, this year, she’s not the only woman in this talented family who has them coming.
Focus Features will release “Sense & Sensibility” in theaters on Friday, October 16.