Mariella Folstrup: …whose new movie, This Year's Love, has just opened and sees Jennifer playing confused and blonde dreadlocked single-mum Sophie, a Rodin rebel who's struggling to find her place in the world, in a quirky British love story set in Camden Town.
A clip of the movie is shown.
MF: Hello Jennifer, welcome to the show. That's a hell of a hairdo you had, was it a wig or something?
Jennifer Ehle (laughing): No, it was a nightmare, they were dreadlocks, they were extensions. And I wore them for two and a half - three months.
MF: Well, I think that was very courageous of you - to take up that challenge for the three months. Did it make the sort of corsets and bodices and all the things you had to wear in period pieces seem like nothing in comparison?
JE: Absolutely like nothing.
MF: It's a really great film, it's a sort of very very contemporary - set in Camden Town - it talks about these six people's lives, basically. Do you think, as a twenty-something, that there were sort of very believable dilemmas in terms of love that these characters are undergoing?
JE: Yes, I think so. I know lots of people - (laughing) I'm not talking about myself, of course -
MF: (laughing) Oh no!
JE: Who, yes, I think - people who are looking for love, looking for relationships, wondering when you give up, when you stop, when - are there a set number of times and then it's impossible to fall in love with someone? And to make it last, to make it work.
MF: What was it about playing her that appealed to you?
JE: Oh, it was great to play somebody who did not have to be warm (laughs) or stand by their man, in any way. I've been very lucky and played some wonderful women who've done that, but it was nice to not have to do that, to not have to be ingratiating or charming to the audience. And none of the characters really have a function, none of the characters are a device.
MF: Is it easier or harder playing somebody that you really don't have very much sympathy with?
JE: I find it difficult to play Sophie. I found it difficult when I saw the film - I wasn't as unlikeable as I thought I was being.
MF: Oh really?
JE: Mmmm.
MF: Did you want to make her -
JE: I found that really disappointing.
MF: Because you had a little twinkle in your eye all the way through, that's why.
JE: Oh!
MF: That's what sold you down the line, you're going to have to just clear that twinkle.
JE: They lit that twinkle.
MF: Your father is an American writer, and you spent a lot of your childhood sort of traveling in America, yet when you decided that you wanted to be an actress and you wanted to study to be an actress, you chose this country. Why was that, 'cause the most obvious thing, surely, would have been to stick to America at that stage?
JE: Oh, I don't know, I did want a classical training, so originally that's why I came to England. And I didn't ever think - I didn't ever want to have to compete in America to get parts. I always found it very intimidating and didn't think I could stand up under the physical scrutiny, and to fight for a part, and to be grateful to - you know, to play somebody's girlfriend, wasn't - you know, if things went well, that wouldn't be what I wanted, and the chances of things going well, the competition is much stiffer there, so I didn't really see much point in staying.
MF: You made your TV debut in The Chamomile Lawn, which was this huge controversy about nudity. Were you glad to sort of get it over and done with early on, and do you think in retrospect it actually didn't do you any harm because it probably brought you much more sort of popular attention than you might have achieved in a different sort of role?
JE: I - I don't think The Chamomile Lawn did me any harm in the long run because Elizabeth Bennet sort of eclipsed it. (laughing) And I suddenly went from being the - if there was anything written about me, it was the tempestuous Calypso, who took her clothes off in The Chamomile Lawn, and then all of a sudden, it was, you know, Elizabeth Bennet off with Mr. Darcy. And um.. I don't think it did any harm in the long run. I think it might have for a little while.
MF: Pride and Prejudice was a sort of turning point in your career, and Sense and Sensibility was for Gywneth Paltrow - and sorry - Emma was for Gywneth Paltrow, and Sense and Sensibility for Kate Winslet. It seemed to me that there was just this huge hysteria about Jane Austen at the time. What - why do you think it was?
JE: I don't know. I really don't know. I was at the Royal Shakespeare Company at Stratford-upon-Avon, and I missed the whole thing.
(They both laugh.)
MF: You were a major part of it.
JE: I completely missed it! It was very strange.
MF: Both you and Colin Firth seemed to have a bit of trouble after Pride and Prejudice in kind of shaking off the characters, in the terms of the way that people perceived you. Do you think that that's sort of a necessary evil of television in the way that if you play a part that's really successful, and sort of people typecast you in that way?
JE: I think, yeah, I think it can happen. I don't feel like I've ever been typecast typecasted - um, maybe in people's perceptions - um - there is a sort of - they do linger, I think television parts more than anything. But love stories do as well, and if there's a love story the public responds to, I think that you do sort of fall in love with the idea of a couple and then don't really want to let that go. But I've never really worried about it. And I don't think Colin doesn't seem to - he seems to have shaken it off.
MF: In real life, you had a love affair as well, you and Colin, and it's happened on another occasion with you and Toby Stephens, and I wonder if - when you were making The Chamomile Lawn - and I just wonder if it's just one of those necessary evils of the job, that you're kind of thrust together for a period of time and it's hard to sort of separate. Do you think it's to be recommended?
(JE starts laughing)
I don't know what I'm asking.
JE: To be recommended? I think it depends on the person. It's also just - it's really - so many actors, it's just who you meet. I mean, it's the other people you're thrown together with most of the time. And they're usually fairly attractive and well lit, and um…you're often somewhere very beautiful and you know, you look at them and say 'I love you', and it's on the page and then it sort of it happens. It doesn't - um, in both those cases, it was not - um, that sounds like I'm belittling the relationships and in both those cases they shouldn't be belittled. But I think, it can be a lot of fun.
MF: It must be awful after the film's made and there's no more lovely lighting, so it's sort of a metaphor for what a real relationship is like when you suddenly see them in the harsh light of day.
JE: Well, both those continued for - yeah - once the lighting had become - um - fluorescent.
MF: Do you think it's a particularly good time to be an actress in Britain and particularly at your age?
JE: Yes. I'm enjoying it. (laughing) I don't know, I don't have anything to compare it to. But yeah, I think it's very exciting.
MF: I mean, ten years ago, there just weren't films being made in this country.
JE: No.
MF: And now, all of a sudden you know, there seems to be an absolute - I remember I read somewhere that there was an outrageous number of movies were made here last year, something like ninety-five films.
JE: Wow. It is exciting, it is an exciting time. And I would much rather be here than in America.
MF: Really? I mean, even now, that you've sort of got experience under your belt and some serious kind of calling card, so you wouldn't just be at the long, at the end of a long line, you know, sort of hopefully auditioning, do you still not feel any desire to -
JE: It would depend on the part and whatever. I mean, I would never say, 'No, absolutely never will I do that.' But right now, the things I'm interested in are usually here and unfinanced. (she laughs) So, um, I'll decorate my flat. With what, I don't know.
MF (laughing): Well, you might have to borrow the tins of paint.
JE: I might have to do a film in America so I can decorate my flat.
MF: Well, I hope you don't stay away too long. Thank you very much Jennifer Ehle.