“Matthew’s a man who is sexy in the mode of Richard Burton, with a bit of Alan Rickman. You need to see that kind of rugged beauty in Darcy, knowing that here was a man who walks across fields, climbs trees, and very much manages his own estate. With Matthew, you can see that etched across his face, yet he’s also got this extraordinary vulnerability. On the page, Darcy reads as being very cold, but Mathew is so vulnerable through his big manliness that he gives Darcy extra qualities.”

(Keira Knightley)

Macfadyen recognizes that wounded pride can both humiliate and spark an attraction: “It is terribly attractive when your pomposity is noticed and then punctured in public. It is infuriating and embarrassing and you hate that person. When Elizabeth humiliates Darcy at the Meryton Ball, he finds it incredibly funny. I mean, he is mortified and hates her but goes home and locks all the doors and laughs hysterically into the pillow. That is why she is so attractive.”

“When he was Darcy and she was Lizzie something happened and they were just perfect together. Keira and Matthew were just wicked together.”

(Joe Wright, Director)

“I think, at the beginning, you know it´s that fight within herself of trying to figure out why she likes this person. It´s a relationship full of misunderstandings and pride and prejudice”

(Keira Knightley)

Hands, hands, hands…

“I just love Brenda (Mrs. Bennet) in this scene, just hating him. `My small rectory abuts her state´. I always think that line is really rude. I don´t know why but it just sounds rude. `A parsonage of no mean size´sounds rude as well. I think Mr. Collins has got a filthy mind. He´s all about sex, Mr. Collins, really. Or, rather, sexual frustration.”

(Joe Wright, Director)

“This moment I thought up while we were travelling up to Derbyshire. With my eyes shut feeling the wind on my face, looking out of a car window. And I like cutting from an extreme close-up, to an extreme wide. Those kind of dramatic cuts.”

(Joe Wright, Director)

“Got all the actors to improvise as much as possible to give it a kind of reality and a freshness. I was screaming at Matthew at that moment to walk through and turn left, and trying to be heard over the music. The energy that you get as a director shooting a scene like that is just the best feeling in the world. The adrenalin of it is just incredible. That´s what we live for. Or at least that´s what I live for”.

(Joe Wright, Director)

“Really fun, ‘cause I’m an only child so, I don’t know what it’s like to have that particular rivalry you have with a sister or that particular love or whatever and with this it feels like it has come alive.”

(Rosamund Pike)

“He´s a chancer. He´s someone who will make good of a bad situation and, for Wickham, getting the best out of a situation is getting the most money out of it. He is somebody who knows a good thing when he sees it. He´s unbelievably charming and it´s hard to deny him”.

(Rupert Friend)

He and I are so similar.