A love story every woman would die a thousand deaths to live.” That was the melodramatic tagline on the 1944 film version of
Jane Eyre, starring Orson Welles and Joan Fontaine. The Mills and Boon-style prose might have rotated Charlotte Brontë in her grave, but it does sum up the romantic power of the classic novel, and the reason why it has spawned more than 20 TV and film productions, plays, and another novel,
Wide Sargasso Sea. The 1944 version is widely regarded as definitive, and if no one else has managed to improve on it in 62 years, do we really need another
Jane Eyre? Well, yes. The BBC’s new four-part series promises to reinvigorate the original story, just as the other recent adaptations have. The series has the dark drama and edgy camerawork of
Bleak House, the emotional tension and sympathetic heroine of
Pride and Prejudice, and a worthy successor to Colin Firth’s Mr Darcy in the form of Toby Stephens, who plays the fiery heart-throb Mr Rochester. The key to the success of this adaptation, however, is the actress playing Jane Eyre herself — a virtually unknown 24-year-old called Ruth Wilson — who finely conveys the heroine’s combination of outer stoicism and inner passion.
On meeting Wilson, I am struck by how much prettier she is off screen than as Jane. Instead of a gothic pallor, she has a light honey glow, while the thick eyebrows that give her character a fierce aspect have been plucked into fine, architectural arches. She’s also sporting rather bling, long French manicured nails, the vanity of which would have the pious Jane screwing up those unplucked eyebrows in disapproval. “Lots of people have said to me, ‘You aren’t plain, so why are you playing plain Jane?’,” she says in an animated South London accent. “But I do look pretty drab in the film. I wear hardly any make-up, I have these horrible matted extensions and I had to grow my eyebrows out so they look wild.”
In the novel much is made of Jane Eyre’s plain appearance and she refers repeatedly to her “want of beauty”. Brontë was making a moral statement in creating a proto-feminist heroine who doesn’t conform to Victorian standards of beauty.
Brontë’s Rochester, too, is coarse looking, with “a colourless olive face . . . square massive brow . . . firm grim mouth”, which makes the debonair Stephens a surprising choice as the gruff anti-hero. Wilson admits that Stephens “wasn’t really how I imagined Rochester. I envisaged someone a bit more brooding. Toby is just instantly good-looking, very chiselled. (But) it turns out he is absolutely perfect for the role.”
Indeed, Stephens makes a convincing, sternly seductive Rochester. So did Wilson’s heart flutter during those corseted clinches? “Well, I did fancy him, but only as Jane. As Ruth I love him to bits, but as a mate. Toby snarls and sneers a lot as Rochester, but he’s actually loud and funny and whenever I felt out of my depth he was really supportive.”
The series was filmed in Derbyshire over about 13 weeks. “It was enjoyable but tough,” says Wilson.
“I’ve never worked quite so hard. I was in every scene — even if I was in the background there would be a close-up of my expression at some point.” The physical challenge of 12-hour days was hardly eased by cumbersome costumes and tight corsets, but as Wilson explains, “they put you straight into character and they give you instant posture.” Raising the question of how romance ever flourished in the 19th century before daily showering, she adds: “
I did wonder how the hell they used to function in those clothes. Everyone must have really stunk, because they were doing stuff every day on horses, in hot weather. Yuck.”
Despite the pressure to conform to the existing image of Eyre that lives in the minds of critics and viewers, Wilson seems undaunted: “If you try and fit into someone’s mould of what a character should be then you will never get it right.” She declares that she isn’t going to read any reviews of the series, but one form of preview she has read is the BrontëBlog (bronteblog.blogspot.com), “where all these obsessed people post their every thought about the Brontës. They were saying all this stuff like ‘She’s 5ft 7in: she’s too tall to play Jane, she should be 4ft nothing.’ I wanted to log on and say, ‘Hi, I’m Ruth Wilson’, and set them all straight.” While the Brontë bloggers might balk at a rogue ouija board scene, it is one of only a few minor changes to the novel.
Wilson has also made a point of not watching any of the other versions of Jane Eyre. “You can get bogged down in other people’s visions,” she explains. “I think it’s better to consult the bible (she means the original novel).” She has read the book twice, once at the age of 12 and again before her audition, and she seems to be deeply immersed in its characters and themes. “I don’t think you can play a character if you don’t like them, and I loved Jane,” she says. “She’s determined, strong, driven, with an incredible morality. She’s the typical British underdog, but she also remains true to herself — it’s such a feminist novel.”
Given her references to feminism, is Wilson familiar with more academic interpretations? I attempt to fox her with postcolonial and feminist theories, and she muses on them unfazed before saying: “We’ve also explored the idea that Bertha represents a side of Jane that she hasn’t been able to express. There’s the question of whether (Bertha is) real or a figment of (Jane’s) repressed sexual imagination.”
Wilson’s ease with academic analysis reflects her unusual route into acting. She has a degree in history from Nottingham University, where several lead roles in drama productions convinced her to “give acting a shot”. She studied drama at London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art (Lamda) and after leaving got the role of the oversexed teenager Jewel Diamond in the surreal Channel 4 comedy Suburban Shootout.
Today’s footballer’s wife manicure is part of Jewel Diamond’s costume — she has just come from the set of the second series.
Since landing the part of Jane Eyre, Wilson has been exciting a lot of interest from casting agents, but unemployment is a recent enough memory to prevent the attention going to her head. “When I wasn’t working I had to develop other skills. I’m quite good at baking. I was seriously thinking of opening an organic cake stall in Waterloo, near where I live.” This leads to a literary digression worthy of the BrontëBlog. “If Jane Eyre made cakes,” she muses, “they would be organic, and definitely sugar, wheat, and dairy free. They’d probably look revolting but taste good.” When Wilson gets this deep under the skin of her characters, it’s a safe bet that Waterloo won’t be getting that cake stall.
Jane Eyre, Sun, BBC One, 9pm
