Maybe, I'm wasting my young years.

We were all approaching it as a difficult thing to tackle, because it had already been done on TV, and we wanted this version to be different. Joe [Wright, the director] felt that the high waistline was really unflattering. In the 18th century, you had a corseted waist that was more or less the natural waistline, and after the 1790s it started moving up towards empire line. Joe found out that the book (published in 1813) was actually written in 1796, and thought ‘Anything to get us back earlier!’ So that’s what we did.

I almost got married once. Wentworth held my heart. But he was a sailor without rank or fortune. And I was persuaded to give him up.

“Dear Anne…I can listen no longer in silence. Anne, you pierce my soul. Dare not say that man forgets sooner than woman, that his love has an earlier death. I am half agony, half hope. I know you are to marry Mr. Elliot, but I will never forgive myself if I do not tell you this. You alone have brought me to Bath. For you alone I think and plan. But of course you have not seen this. How could you? Because your love has not lasted as long as mine. Anne…I have loved no one but you. And I don’t think I ever will. I have thought many times about how to tell you but the pain of a love unrequited rendered me silent. Tell me not that I am too late. My love for you has never faltered.”