Bells are chiming outdoors of Emily Beecham’s flat, boldly interrupting the interview underway. I feel it’s charming, however Beecham is aware of higher—she’s the one who has to be there, in particular person, once they begin ringing at 6 a.m. “It’s so annoying,” she says. “I don’t know the way the locals take pleasure in it.”
On this second, she sounds a bit like Linda Radlett—the thrillingly impetuous younger heiress of Nancy Mitford’s bitingly satirical and surprisingly beneficiant 1945 novel The Pursuit of Love. But whereas Beecham stars in Emily Mortimer’s three-part collection adaptation of the novel, out on Amazon Prime Video on July 30, Lily James performs Linda. Beecham as an alternative takes the function of Linda’s a lot much less animated although nonetheless quietly opinionated cousin Fanny, whose mom, referred to solely because the Bolter (performed by Mortimer), is at all times off chasing romance. Although the character could seem much less flashy, the critically acclaimed English actor—who gained finest actress on the 2019 Cannes Movie Competition for her efficiency as a morally ambivalent scientist in Jessica Hausner’s Little Joe—brings many shades of an uncertain younger girl’s life into Mortimer’s eccentrically trendy script.
The novel focuses firmly on glamorous and delicate Linda, whereas Fanny primarily serves as a wallflower of a narrator. Mortimer’s collection, nonetheless, posits Fanny as a extra lively and important observer. “One of many issues [Mortimer and I] at all times mentioned was that Fanny had a lot happening along with her, and so many needs,” says Beecham. “She needs every thing Linda has, but additionally, there may be a lot that she needs to specific and do that’s thought-about masculine, that isn’t on provide to her due to her intercourse.”
That repression—and resentment of her absent and impractical mom—is central to Fanny’s growth and the collection’ emotional thrust. Fanny, like many ladies in that period and even at the moment, can continuously really feel herself urgent up in opposition to the boundaries of her place. And in contrast to Linda and the Bolter, she is geared towards respectability. Stepping out of her place would imply risking publicity and mock, emotions she is already effectively acquainted with after rising up partly underneath the scrutiny of her Uncle Matthew (Dominic West), Linda’s unpredictable, imperious, and xenophobic father. Fanny solely overcomes this sense of worry by frequently falling out and reconnecting with sensible (although formally uneducated) Linda.
Within the collection, Beecham, 37, and James, 32, play Fanny and Linda from early childhood by motherhood. There aren’t any obvious prosthetics or growing older strategies past different kinds of their hair, make-up, costume, and efficiency. To get into character as younger Fanny, Beecham mentioned, “one factor all of us talked about is that this type of thrilling unknowingness, that you just don’t know what’s going to occur to your life—you don’t know who you’re going to fall in love with and what on earth is it going to be like. For Fanny it definitely is terrifying, but additionally thrilling.”
In embodying Fanny, Beecham additionally drew upon a disconnected physicality. “I felt Fanny might be just a little bit awkward, as a result of all that basically is predicted of girls, in accordance to Uncle Matthew, is to journey a horse, converse French, and play piano. To mainly be fairly and to marry effectively. And Fanny, being introduced up with such a distinct affect from Aunt Emily”—who’s reliable and sensible, and performed within the collection by Annabel Mullion—“will not be targeted on these female values.