Movies
7 ‘Sense and Sensibility’ Behind-The-Scenes Secrets That’ll Surprise You
Lauded as one of the best Jane Austen adaptations of all time, Sense and Sensibility has a reputation that’s almost as impressive as the novel it’s based on. Almost 30 years have passed since its December 13, 1995, premiere, and the classic has definitely withstood the test of time.
Led by director Ang Lee and screenwriter Emma Thompson, the period romance became a testament to the filmmaking powers that combine traditional concepts in a modern way. With the 30th anniversary of the film’s release upon us, Swooon is unearthing some behind-the-scenes secrets. Get ready to have a whole new appreciation for the movie!
1. Emma Thompson wrote the role of Edward Ferrars with Hugh Grant in mind.
Thompson had a specific vision for her first feature screenplay. Not only was she not interested in making it a film in which the leads were only interested in male validation, but she also knew who she wanted to cast. The role of Edward Ferrars was always supposed to go to her pal Hugh Grant.
When she first began writing Sense and Sensibility, the floppy-haired Brit was not known for his rom-com roles just yet. However, he had made it to the big leagues with Four Weddings and A Funeral prior to Sense and Sensibility’s release. Luckily, his impending fame didn’t make him pursue other projects, as the Notting Hill star was marvelous as the older Ferrar brother.
2. It took Emma Thompson five years to write the screenplay.
Busy with other projects, Thompson took quite some time to get the Sense and Sensibility screenplay done. Yet, it wasn’t just her hectic schedule that made it a five-year journey. Thompson also made some serious attempts at rewrites. In the end, all of it panned out perfectly.
Thompson took home the Academy Award for Best Screenplay for her work on Sense and Sensibility. To this day, she is still the only person to have won an Oscar for their performance as an actor (for Howard’s End in 1993) and for her screenplay.
This accomplishment didn’t surprise Lindsay Doran, the producer who originally sought out Thompson for Sense and Sensibility. She was looking for a writer who was “equally strong in the areas of satire and romance.” Doran opened up to The New Yorker that it wasn’t simple to find the right person. “Not an easy combination, I admit, since satirists are often too bitter to be romantic, and romantics are often too sentimental to be satiric,” she said. However, she knew Thompson had both of those qualities.
The reason why she knew Thompson was perfect for the project was because of the actor’s self-titled project. The sketch sees a Victorian newlywed mistake her husband’s penis for a mouse. This made Doran realize that the Love Actually alum was someone who could be funny in a period language.
3. Ang Lee hated the sheep.
Lee’s first British production was different than his other projects. Working with more sheep than ever before, the Taiwanese director admitted to wanting “no more sheeps. Never again sheeps,” Thompson recalled in the Sense and Sensibility screenplay and diaries booklet.
The director was considered the right fit for the period piece after producer Duran saw his cult hit The Wedding Banquet and then Eat Drink Man Woman. “The idea of combining Ang Lee and Jane Austen became even more appealing. After all, Eat Drink Man Woman was a story of sisters, and it contained elements of both satire and romance,” Duran divulged in the intro to the booklet.
4. Stephen Fry saved Emma Thompson’s script.
Sense and Sensibility could’ve been lost to a computer failure. Yes, that’s right! Thompson professed to not knowing too much about the digital world and got help from her buddy Stephen Fry to bring her script back from the void. In the production notes, Thompson shared, “Once, last year, my computer scrambled the script and because I am a computer-illiterate fool, I had no back-up. No one from Apple Mac could rescue it so I took it over to Stephen’s and he spent an entire day finding it. I hyperventilated with gratitude for weeks.” Because of his contribution to the feature, Fry is thanked in the closing credits.
The twosome met during their days at the prestigious Cambridge University. While there, both of them were a part of the Cambridge Footlights Club, a students’ sketch comedy troupe, in the early ’80s alongside Hugh Laurie. Laurie notably played Mr. Palmer in Sense and Sensibility.
5. Kate Winslet got hypothermia on set.
In a 25th anniversary reunion conversation with Kate Winslet, Lee, and other cast and crew members, featured as a bonus feature on Columbia Classics 4K Ultra HD Collection Volume 2, the Titanic star gave some new insights about the conditions on set.
The weather in England is often gnarly, and Winslet was hit with a wave of hypothermia. However, it wasn’t the actual weather conditions that did it. Instead, it was the doings of a rain machine. Winslet collapsed after shooting around 50 takes of her character, Marianne Dashwood, slipping and falling in the rain before she is carried home by her onscreen suitor John Willoughby (Greg Wise).
She said, “I remember [fainting], and I remember then subsequently being part of a very early moment between [Emma and Greg].” Thinking back on that time, Winslet reminisced, “Because I’m fainting and getting hypothermia, and Greg [is] shoving my feet into his armpits to warm [me] up. So I had Greg at one end and then I’ve got Emma at the other end going, ‘You’ll be all right. Give me a little bit of a rub.'”
She continued, “Little did I know that they were flirting over my…,” before Wise interjected, “Nearly dead body.” Winslet cleverly joked, “You were probably just wishing I would die so you could have a cheeky moment.”
6. Emma Thompson met her husband on set.
Thompson and Wise, who played John Willoughby, met while filming the romantic period drama. Thompson was married to Kenneth Branagh while filming, but they split in 1995.
Columbia Pictures / Everett Collection
The actress and Wise fell in love after her split from Branagh. “Work saved me and Greg saved me,” she revealed on BBC Radio 4, per Independent. “He picked up the pieces and put them together again.”
Their daughter, Gaia, was born in 1999. Thompson and Wise married in 2003, the same year they adopted their son, Tindyebwa Agaba.
7. Kate Winslet was skipping meals during production.
Being in the public eye isn’t easy, and being a woman in the public eye makes it worse. Only 19 when she began filming Sense and Sensibility, Winslet had a tendency to not eat as much as she needed to, and this didn’t go unnoticed.
“We were filming Sense and Sensibility, and she could tell I was skipping lunch, pretending I’d had breakfast. She took me aside and said, ‘Losing weight is absolutely wrong for the part and absolutely wrong for you. Do you want to be a twig or a heart and soul that is true?'” Winslet told British Vogue in 1998.
Speaking highly of her from the get-go, Thompson raved over Winslet. “The bravest of the brave, that girl,” Thompson gushed. “I can’t imagine what sort of a state I would have been in at 19 with the prospect of such a huge role in front of me. She is energized and open, realistic, intelligent, and tremendous fun.”
The Mare of Easttown performer wasn’t the only one Thompson looked out for on set. “I’m appalled to find that Emilie François (Margaret), who is 12, is keen to ‘lose a few kilos’. Does all that horror really start so young these days? I snorted a lot and forced a Jaffa Cake down her,” Thompson revealed in her diaries.
