The British actress said the 117-year-old novel is relevant today, and got advice from Emma Thompson, who won an Oscar for the same role.
It might have been intimidating for British actress Hayley Atwell to sign on for the lead in Starz’s adaptation of E.M. Forster’s literary classic “Howards End,” given the long shadow cast by Emma Thompson, who won a Best Actress Oscar for the 1992 Merchant-Ivory film version. But Atwell had some help from Thompson herself.
“Emma’s a friend of mine, and I’m very familiar with her performance in it,” Atwell says. “I e-mailed her to say, ‘They’re doing the impossible, they’re going to attempt to make this,’ and being Emma, incredibly generous and warm, she said ‘You’re about to work with a writer, E.M. Forster, who is one of literature’s first proper feminists. [The character] Margaret will change you — she’s an extraordinary person. You are she and she is you.’ She passed the baton in a way.”
Of the new miniseries, which debuts in the U.S. April 8, Atwell says, “The look of it is different, the energy is different.” For one thing, the novel was adapted for the small screen by Kenneth Lonergan (“Manchester By the Sea”) and directed by British filmmaker Hettie MacDonald.
“It’s adapting in four hours as opposed to a 90-minute film, so there’s more of the book in it, and Kenny’s writing takes so much of the content of the text and the dialogue and lifts it, but puts it into a very fresh way that’s accessible and real, so that it feels relevant to today,” she adds.
The 117-year-old novel continues to enjoy a reputation as one of the greats the 20th century, and Atwell says she sees both the timeless qualities of the story and its appeal to contemporary audiences.
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Alongside a set of exclusive portraits, the actress opens up about her role in the new miniseries based on the E. M. Forster classic.
Merchant Ivory immortalized E. M. Forster’s 1910 novel Howards End in a glorious, Oscar-winning film in 1992, and now, a new BBC/Starz miniseries is rebooting the timeless drama for a contemporary audience. The four-part adaptation follows three vastly different families—the intellectual Schlegel sisters, the capitalist Wilcoxes and the impoverished Basts—as they intertwine and clash at the dawn of the modern era.
The series, directed by Hettie MacDonald and written by Oscar-winning Manchester by the Sea writer Kenneth Lonergan, centers on fiercely independent Margaret Schlegel (Hayley Atwell) and her idealistic sister Helen (Philippa Coulthard). As Margaret finds herself drawn into the inner circle of the wealthy, mysterious Wilcoxes, Helen devotes herself to a young working-class man desperate to improve himself, setting up the three families for a calamitous encounter when long-buried secrets and private prejudices come to light.
Alongside these gorgeous portraits, exclusive to BAZAAR.com, Atwell walks us through this fascinating cast of characters and why the women and relationships of Howards End should be the new normal in film and television.
Howards End premieres Sunday, April 8 on Starz.
1 Hayley Atwell as Margaret Schlegel
“Emma Thompson [who played Margaret in the 1992 film] told me she believes E. M. Forster is one of literature’s first proper feminists, in the sense that he gave [Margaret] her full mind,” says Atwell. “He gave her so many dimensions. She can be contradictory, and hypocritical, and self-aware but also completely naïve. She is passionate yet maternal. She is rational yet, at times, incredibly confused and overwhelmed. All of this is done with such elegance and emotional intelligence and clarity, which is like, ‘Wow, this is written by a guy?'”
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Hayley Atwell attends the press night and after party for ‘Good Girl’ at Trafalgar Studios on March 6, 2018 in London. You can go to the gallery to take a look to the photos.
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Gallery Links:
— “Good Girl” – Press Night – After Party
— “Good Girl” – Press Night
Avengers star Hayley Atwell says playing a woman “who doesn’t rely on her beauty or her charm” was part of the appeal of her new play set in the world of private equity.
The actress plays Jenny in Dry Powder, a cold calculating businesswoman with no sense of the human cost of her decisions, in her first stage role in five years.
She said: “This was the first play I had read that had debunked female stereotypes and for me I hadn’t seen a female character like this before.
“There is no sexual chemistry, that’s new, she doesn’t rely on her beauty or her charm, she has none, she is someone who thinks in numbers and severely lacks emotional intelligence.
“Everything is very much compartmentalised, she sees things as an equation to be worked out.”
Atwell, who admits she was ignorant of the world of finance before taking on the role, spent time with the play’s writer, New Yorker Sarah Burgess, and with people who work in the industry as part of her research.
She said: “I had no interest in it so when I read the script for maybe the first quarter of it I was thinking I don’t really understand a lot of this but I know it’s really good writing, I know it’s very witty, I think the characters are very distinct and I’m understanding that there are different arguments going on.
“By the end of it it didn’t matter that I didn’t really understand the financial jargon.”
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The actor on her return to the stage as a Wall Street villain, her debt to Emma Thompson and why she wouldn’t work with Woody Allen again
London-born Hayley Atwell, 35, graduated from Guildhall School of Music and Drama in 2005 and within months landed her debut film role in Woody Allen’s Cassandra’s Dream. She has twice been Olivier award-nominated for stage roles, and after playing Peggy Carter in the Captain America films, landed her own TV spin-off, Marvel’s Agent Carter. She starred in autumn’s acclaimed BBC adaptation of Howards End and is currently making her debut at Hampstead theatre in Dry Powder.
You’re starring in Sarah Burgess’s Wall Street comedy Dry Powder. How’s it going?
It’s a real delight. I hadn’t been on stage for five years and was looking for something that jumped off the page, a female role with wit and chutzpah. The play’s set in the world of high finance and initially I didn’t understand the lingo or the rampant capitalism. But it grew on me. Turns out it’s very liberating to play someone who’s unapologetically ruthless.
Yes, your character Jenny is quite villainous…
She’s described as “a vampire” with “sociopathic tendencies”, yet Jenny’s happy with herself and sleeps well at night. She doesn’t have that moment where she breaks down and says “My daddy abused me” and the audience go “Aha, that’s why she’s such a bitch”. Sure, she lacks emotional intelligence and lives in a world of numbers, but if a man in her position displayed those qualities, he’d probably get a pat on the back.
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