Daisy Edgar-Jones has never been one to wear her heart on her sleeve — and that, she insists, is precisely why she was born to play Elinor Dashwood. In a new adaptation of Jane Austen’s 1811 novel, the 28-year-old actor embodies the elder sister whose rationality is both her armour and her prison. Speaking candidly about the role, Edgar-Jones admitted something that might unsettle a few romantics: in love, she is very much an Elinor herself. “I definitely lead a lot with my head and try and push aside, bury my emotion,” she told me. But the film, she insists, became a kind of liberation — not just for her character, but for her.
A Classic, Not a Reinvention
Director Georgia Oakley has made a deliberate choice here: this is Austen’s period piece, not a contemporary remix. When I pressed Edgar-Jones on whether there was ever a temptation to push the material into 2026, she conceded the film feels deeply rooted in its era — but praised Oakley’s “fresh” filmmaking sensibility. It is a fine line to walk, and one that risks accusations of timidity. Yet there is something quietly radical about trusting Austen’s prose rather than sanding it down for modern consumption.
Edgar-Jones stars opposite Esmé Creed-Miles, 26, who plays the impassioned Marianne — the sister who feels everything immediately and apologises later. The pairing works because the two actors already share a history. They appeared together as teenagers in the 2018 film Pond Life, where Creed-Miles recalls nightly sleepovers and marathon Love Island sessions. That sisterly rapport surfaces effortlessly on screen, lending the Dashwood bond an authenticity that CGI could never manufacture.
The Austen Renaissance Isn’t Stopping
Jane Austen is, indisputably, having a moment. Last year marked the 250th anniversary of her birth, and the cultural appetite shows no sign of fading. BBC audiences have devoured Miss Austen and The Other Bennet Sister, the West End has embraced a Clueless musical spun from Emma, and Ava Pickett has offered a bold modern stage take on the same novel. Coming soon to Netflix is Dolly Alderton’s adaptation of Pride and Prejudice, starring Emma Corrin.
Edgar-Jones sees none of this as redundant. “Her stories are something that fascinate us still today,” she says. “She has an incredible way of articulating the female experience — her ruminations on love, on romance, on sisterly love, on family dynamics, on interpersonal social dynamics — she’s such a talent.” It is a claim worth scrutinising. Austen’s genius was never merely sentimental; it was surgical. She dissected the economic realities trapping women in marriage markets with a wit that remains devastating.
Ghosting Before It Had a Name
Here is where the critical case for Austen’s modernity strengthens. The novelist was writing about situationships, hot-and-cold behaviour, and emotional vanishing acts decades before TikTok coined the vocabulary. “We still have the same human heart as we did 200 years ago,” Edgar-Jones argues. “Our capacity to love and feel heartbreak, and that early first love feeling, is something that we all experience in various ways.”
Creed-Miles adds a softer verdict: “I don’t know if seeing a movie is going to fix everything, but it might make you feel a little bit less alone in some of the things you’re feeling.” It is a modest claim, but perhaps the most honest one an artist can make.
From Normal People to Bond Rumours
Edgar-Jones shot to global prominence during the pandemic alongside Paul Mescal in Normal People, Sally Rooney’s devastating study of on-off young love. The pair have remained close — Edgar-Jones once described Mescal as “one of my all-time best friends” — and both have since built formidable filmographies. She has starred in Twisters and Where the Crawdads Sing; he has taken on Gladiator II, Hamnet, and the forthcoming Beatles biopics.
Page Six recently reported that Mescal is on the audition list for the next James Bond. I put the question to Edgar-Jones. She did not exactly confirm, but her answer was telling: “I don’t know, but I think there’s nothing Paul can’t do. So I would be there. Wow, that’s cool.” Whether Bond producers are listening remains to be seen, but the actor’s credentials keep growing.
Why it Matters
The enduring hunger for Austen adaptations is not mere nostalgia — it is a mirror. Each generation discovers in her novels the same uncomfortable truths about power, money, and the performances required of women in polite society. Edgar-Jones and Creed-Miles may not reinvent the wheel, but they remind us why the wheel still turns. In an age of algorithm-driven dating and performative emotion, Austen’s insistence that feeling and thinking are not opposites feels less like period drama and more like a manifesto. The Dashwood sisters are not characters in a Regency romance; they are us, navigating the same impossible choices two centuries later, and somehow still making it look graceful.
