Emma, Anya Taylor-Joy

Love Knows Best.

Cast: Bill Nighy, Anya Taylor-Joy, Miranda Hart, Johnny Flynn, Mia Goth, Rupert Graves, Josh O'Connor, Amber Anderson, Tanya Reynolds, Connor Swindells, Gemma Whelan, Callum Turner
Director: Autumn de Wilde
Genre: Comedy, Drama
Rated: PG
Running Time: 125 minutes

Synopsis: Jane Austen's beloved comedy about finding your equal and earning your happy ending is reimagined in this delicious new film adaptation of Emma.

Handsome, clever and rich, 21-year-old Emma Woodhouse (Anya Taylor-Joy) is a restless "queen bee" who has lived all her life in the sleepy English village of Highbury with very little to distress or vex her. When our story begins, Emma has recently discovered the thrill of matchmaking. She has succeeded in orchestrating a marriage between her governess and the kind widower, Mr. Weston. Emma celebrates her success until she realizes that she has also orchestrated the loss of her only mother figure and companion in the house. Left alone with her valetudinarian father, Mr. Woodhouse (Bill Nighy), she turns her eyes to acquiring a new companion, the young and naïve Miss Harriet Smith (Mia Goth). Her matrimonial pastime draws a withering eye from the exceedingly moral Mr. Knightley (Johnny Flynn), a wealthy gentleman whose brother has married Emma's older sister. As both a neighbor and a relative, Knightley is often found in the company of Emma and her father.

Once Emma takes Harriet under her wing, she soon determines that the local vicar Mr. Elton (Josh O'Connor) would be perfect for her"even though Harriet has feelings for respectable farmer, Robert Martin. Convinced that Harriet would be far better off with Elton, Emma advises her to reject Martin's proposal and devote her affections to the vicar instead, however, what she does not realize is that the vicar only has eyes for Emma herself. Meanwhile, Emma becomes enamored by Mr. Weston's son, the handsome Frank Churchill (Callum Turner), while others in their circle suspect that Knightley is forming an attachment to the accomplished Jane Fairfax (Amber Anderson), adored niece of chatty spinster, Miss Bates (Miranda Hart).

As the would-be lovers mix and mingle at social affairs, misguided assumptions lead to comical missteps and grave social faux pas, with Emma at the center of them all. Only by coming to terms with her own flaws and mistakes can she navigate the circuitous path toward maturity and discover her perfect match, which has been right in front of her all along.

In her touching, funny and beautifully realized feature directorial debut, filmmaker Autumn de Wilde presents a glittering comedic satire of social class and the challenges of growing up.

Emma
Release Date: February 13th, 2020

About The Production

A Screwball Romantic Comedy Of Manners And Misunderstandings

Few authors can ever hope to see their work attain the remarkable staying power of the fiction of Jane Austen, whose delightful English tales of manners and romance have left readers laughing and swooning for generations. Published in late December 1815, Emma was Austen's fourth novel, and the last to be issued during her lifetime"by the time of its release, she already had penned Sense and Sensibility, Pride and Prejudice and Mansfield Park. But many consider Emma to be Austen's masterpiece, anchored by a well-intentioned yet deeply flawed young woman who can be arrogant, spoiled and blind to her own faults. She is a wonderfully complicated heroine who grows over the course of the narrative to become far more self-aware and far less self-involved. For Emma, humility, maturity and happiness are well earned.

But it is not only the novel's glamorous protagonist that has helped turn Emma into a classic. Austen finds a great deal of humor in her astute observations of the era's social customs and conventions and she populates Emma's village of Highbury with a wildly witty and entertaining collection of main and supporting players. The text is rich enough to invite readers back again and again, each time rewarding them with a new discovery. Emma is both a romance and a satire, a vivid depiction of life during England's Regency period and a comedy of manners.

Emma had been brought to the big screen before"1995's Clueless updated the story to modern-day, while 1996's Emma took a more straightforward approach"but the time felt right to revisit the timeless tale. "Emma is such a wonderful story because it's the "queen bee" story, it's the spiky character," says producer Graham Broadbent, whose company, Blueprint Pictures, partnered with Working Title on the project. "I think it's one of Jane Austen's most interesting novels because the lead is not the person you're most comfortable with until you get comfortable with her. It felt like there's a classic story to tell and a new generation that definitely hasn't seen it. Can you make it bold? Can you make it fun? Can you make it interesting? If you can do all those things, it's not a bad idea to have a go."

Working Title's Tim Bevan adds: "I always felt that Jane Austen for romantic comedic source material is second to none. I liked Emma because the protagonist is a bit juvenile at the beginning of the story. She meddles, and although she thinks she is self-aware, she is, of course, not"her journey both as a human and romantically is an enjoyable one. We felt there was room to do it again with a 2020 feel to it."

In finding the right screenwriter to adapt the book, the producers turned to Eleanor Catton, whose 2013 Man Booker Prize-winning novel The Luminaries, set in 19th century New Zealand, won praise in all corners as a breezy, compelling and richly plotted read. The New York Times Book Review described The Luminaries as "a fiendishly clever ghost story, a gripping page-turner, and a thrilling novelistic achievement." Catton had been collaborating with Working Title to adapt The Luminaries for television when she was approached with the intriguing idea of turning her attention to Jane Austen's Emma. "I don't think it really sunk in until much later what an incredibly huge deal it was," Catton says.

"I loved Clueless and had seen a couple of period adaptations of Emma, but I actually hadn't read the novel before," Catton continues. "I have read it perhaps five or six times now, and each time I read it, I love it more. I am a formalist at heart, and what I revere most about the novel is its exquisite formal patterning. The plot is like a chess game, with echoes and mirrors everywhere, and yet the story is so human and organic, and so shamelessly enjoyable, that you forget it has been designed at all"until the end. I think it is the best novel ever written in English."

Catton's response to the material was so strong, she managed to write a first draft in only three months. "My adaptation of The Luminaries had been a very long time in development, and as a novice screenwriter I had written hundreds and hundreds of drafts of each episode," she explains. "Emma. felt amazingly swift and straightforward by contrast."

That's not to say there weren't challenges. Some of the key characters"namely Emma's crush Frank Churchill"are off stage until almost mid-way through the story; others, like Frank's ailing aunt Mrs. Churchill, never appear at all. "This isn't a problem on the page because an absent character can be described just as easily as a character who is physically present," Catton says. "But it's a problem on screen because film is essentially a medium of presence. I had to find a way of clearly establishing the absent characters"Frank Churchill in particular"and making sure the audience was never confused by any of the interlocking family relationships."

She also wanted to emphasize the friendship between the young women at the center of the story and to give their bond as much prominence as the other couples on screen. "I felt very strongly from the outset that Emma's relationship with Harriet should be taken seriously and not treated as collateral to the romance," Catton says. "I also felt very strongly that the film should be funny in homage to the hilarity of the book."

On that point, she and director Autumn de Wilde agreed, strongly. De Wilde came to the project, her first feature, with wild enthusiasm, having gained a following for her striking photography, her work in commercials for clients including Prada, Uniqlo, Google and Orangina and music videos for artists including Florence + The Machine, The Decemberists, The Raconteurs and Starcrawler.

De Wilde was excited to bring her strong visual style and her sense of whimsy to Regency England. "I have always been obsessed with the fashion, design and the perils of class dynamics in this period as a whole," the filmmaker says. "The inherent comedy in the passive-aggressive behavior that the pressures of politeness can create provides a never-ending source of inspiration for physical comedy. Jane Austen was a brilliant satirist of small town life in the early 1800s, which is sometimes overlooked due to her delicious talent for weaving unparalleled stories of love and longing.

"I don't think there's ever too much Jane Austen," she continues. "These characters are so human, so iconic, so familiar that the distance we feel in years quickly evaporates as we are reminded of our own flaws. We still remain fools in the fight for love and friendship."

Although de Wilde might have felt like a somewhat unconventional choice, her original vision for the film and her passion for the novel made her the right person for the job. "We wanted to find a director who had an original take on the material and also would bring a contemporary relevance to it," says Bevan. "Autumn has a distinctive style both with comedy and visually that felt like it lent itself well to the Emma story. She is also obsessed with the book, which helped."

Broadbent notes: "Autumn had a wonderful aesthetic sense, which I think you would expect, but when she talked about the story, she gets what I would call the high school prism on it. This is the top girl in the high school who has an in-crowd around her. Who are the outsiders? What is the series of misunderstandings? How do they relate to each other? That is the prism through which she looks at these relationships, and that makes these relationships feel quite contemporary and accessible and fun."

De Wilde also wanted the film to be very, very funny. "The other element she was very explicit about was the screwball comedy element," Broadbent continues. "She finds the real comedy of the misunderstandings and extreme behavior. A film she referenced was Bringing Up Baby, and the minute you start to see this film in that world, you're going, okay, I get it. This is a night out at the cinema, not a night in with my exam books."
De Wilde took an open collaborative approach to the project, and her infectious spirit helped inspire Catton to take the screenplay in an even more overtly comedic direction. "The script was much less funny before Autumn de Wilde came on board," Catton says. "Autumn has a huge capacity for laughter, which is a brilliant quality in any creative collaborator"perhaps the most important quality. Most of the best moments in the script came out of trying to make her laugh."

Casting Emma.: Bringing Together An Electric Ensemble

With a wicked, mesmerizing turn in the 2015 horror drama The Witch, Anya Taylor-Joy immediately distinguished herself as a gifted talent, and when de Wilde considered who might be best to portray her Emma, Taylor-Joy was at the top of the list. "Emma's not your usual heroine," de Wilde says. "She really needs to behave badly in order for us to enjoy her redemption in this coming-of-age story. She is not tamed, she finds her heart. Anya is such an incredibly intelligent actress, she can play an anti-hero, without pushing the audience away."

When the filmmaker met Taylor-Joy in New York, their connection was immediate, and the actress knew she needed to play the role. "It was instant," Taylor-Joy says. "I'm a very cosmic person in that way, and I just felt it from the second I gave her a hug"oh wow, she's a special one."

When we meet Emma in the film, she's reigning over Highbury, pleased as punch that her latest matrimonial meddling has led to the happy union between eligible widower Mr. Weston (Rupert Graves) and her former governess (Gemma Whelan). Emma is 21, beautiful, bright"and determined that romance is not in her own future. She has no need to marry and no interest in it. "Our lady is entitled and handsome, clever, rich and knows it," says Taylor-Joy. "She's never really been told no, very spoilt. Everything is her doll's house, and she can pull all of the strings and make everybody do what she wants."

But woe to those who cross her. "Sometimes she really doesn't realize that she's being cruel," Taylor-Joy says. "But other times, she reacts out of jealousy, or her pride being hurt very quickly, and she cannot handle it. She has no impulse control whatsoever, so if somebody has made her feel in any way embarrassed or like she's not on the top of the food chain anymore, she just bites immediately."

To populate Emma.'s high-society world, de Wilde sought to assemble a gifted ensemble of up-and-coming actors that would have the same sort of undeniable chemistry as did the stars of John Hughes' landmark 1980s coming-of-age films. "I was really interested in the next wave of British actors"Bill Nighy is included in that, and Miranda Hart, even though they are already legends," the filmmaker says. "There's an electricity to this group of actors."

At the beginning of the story, Emma's heart belongs to one man, her adoring father, Mr. Woodhouse, played by venerable English actor Nighy. As Emma's mother died when she was much younger and Emma's older sister has married and moved away, she promises to always remain at home to tend to her dear father"and to agree with him almost every time he believes he's felt a draft in the drawing room. "She loves her father so much, but that relationship's not entirely helpful either because he lets her get away with absolutely everything," says Taylor-Joy. "They understand each other's neuroses incredibly well. Mr. Woodhouse is incredibly paranoid about absolutely everything and thinks that the plague is lurking under every flower. She really settles him down."

Offers Nighy: "Mr. Woodhouse seems to be in good faith, generally, and has nothing but a warm concern for his daughter. It's possible he feels responsible in some not-too-obscure way for her control issues, he himself being no stranger to the urge to manipulate."

"Nighy's presence helps elevate the ensemble," Broadbent says. "Bill as Emma's father has such heart and dignity. He hasn't so many words"he has a little bit of neurosis and hypochondria"but you can sense that paternal relationship brilliantly. Audiences love Bill. He's just such a lovely warm comedic presence."

Until very recently, Emma was able to confide in her governess, but now that Emma has made what appears to be a successful match for her, the new Mrs. Weston's departure creates a profound absence in Emma's life. "Mrs. Weston and Emma are extremely close," says actress Gemma Whelan (Game of Thrones). "Mrs. Weston having been Emma's governess for many, many years, she has all but brought Emma up. They are, however, quite close in years, and therefore the relationship is one of mother/sister/teacher/friend. Mrs. Weston knows Emma's intricacies and her interesting approach to things and humors her gently and guides her when needed. It's a very special relationship."

To fill that void, Emma sets her sights on young Harriet Smith, a woman described as having "uncertain parentage" whom Emma charitably decides to take under her wing with an eye toward helping her gain significant social advantage, through marrying well, naturally. Unfailingly polite and kind yet desperately naïve, Harriet is dazzled by the beguiling young woman and is thrilled that Emma has taken such a personal interest in her fortunes.

"One of the biggest love stories in this movie is between Emma and Harriet, finding their way as best friends," de Wilde says. "Female friendships are not focused on often enough, the sort of obsession and passionate love you can feel for your first real best friend. At 21, Emma has never really had a friend that wasn't a paid companion. It places her emotionally in junior high or high school even though she is extraordinarily advanced in intellect. She chooses Harriet as a friend for the wrong reasons, and then realizes she can't live without her, and that's a magnificent process."

From the start, de Wilde pictured Mia Goth in the role"and it so happened that Goth and Taylor-Joy are close friends in real life, having first bonded on the set of the 2017 horror-thriller Marrowbone. Goth is quick to note, though, that Harriet and Emma's rapport develops only over time as Harriet becomes more assertive and the two begin to stand on equal footing.

"Harriet pretty much has her life in order," Goth says. "She is part of this boarding school, she has her friends and everything is going quite swimmingly, really. And soon she ends up meeting Emma Woodhouse, and she goes on this adventure of self-discovery. She aspires to be like Emma. At the beginning, it's not a friendship, it's a transactional relationship. They're both gaining something through their acquaintance, and as the story goes by and they're presented with a set of situations, they end up bonding very deeply with one another. They end up finding out that they're actually quite similar in many ways."

Looking askance at Emma's meddlesome nature is the rather serious and exceedingly forthright Mr. Knightley, the brother of Emma's sister's husband, John. A wealthy gentleman with no living parents of his own, Knightley often calls on the Woodhouse home, spending time with the eccentric Mr. Woodhouse and his beautiful daughter. One surmises that beneath his disapproving demeanor, he might feel quite fondly toward Emma. "Mr. Knightley is very strong in his convictions and incredibly intelligent and very morally conscious," says Taylor-Joy. "And when the two of them come together, he's the only one brave enough to call her out, and say 'You're being a brat.'"
The role went to British folk musician and actor Johnny Flynn, frontman of Johnny Flynn & the Sussex Wit, whose films credits include the 2017 film Beast and the upcoming Stardust, in which he plays a young David Bowie.

"I read the book when I was at school, and I remember being surprised at how much I loved the story"and I remember Mr. Knightley standing out as a very attractive character," Flynn says. "Within this slightly giddy world of the characters and their social climbing, he's somebody who knows what's what, and how people should behave. But the thing that stops him being boring, I think, is that he's playful, and he teases Emma. He's in the family, but he's that much older than her, so in the way that older brothers do, he can tease her, and he can hold a mirror up to her."

De Wilde was drawn to Flynn for the role owing in large part to his natural charisma and his ability to appear rugged yet vulnerable. "I love romantic movies, and I get very tired of the way they're cast," the filmmaker says. "Johnny Flynn reminds me of Steve McQueen. He really has a rock 'n' roll feeling to him. Steve McQueen, I always felt like, when he looked in the camera, you couldn't tell if he was going to cry or punch someone. Johnny and I had a lot of fun weaving panic attacks into Mr. Knightley's heroic journey."

Broadbent adds: "Knightley's the older brother in a sense. He's quite despairing of the group and a little bit despairing of Emma as well. He is wonderfully romantic, and I think girls and boys will love him."

Knightley is truly very different from the other young men with whom Emma is acquainted. Although loath to admit it, Emma's terribly interested in handsome, eligible Frank Churchill, who's the talk of the social circle despite his being away to tend to his ailing aunt. When he finally turns up at Highbury, he is just as dashing as Emma had imagined, and she quickly perceives that he might be equally taken with her.

"She starts off literally having a crush on him before she's ever seen him because he's apparently really good looking, he's wealthy enough to marry her, and he's the only person that's kind of an option"and she is desperate to like feel something along the lines of love," offers Taylor-Joy. "When he shows up, and the two of them have this mischievous, slightly cruel, funny relationship, where they both are master manipulators. It's like having that like sassy friend that you take around with you, but in the back of her mind, Emma's thinking, 'But wait, he's hot. This could be a thing.'"

The supremely confident Churchill is played by Callum Turner, known for such films as Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindewald and John Boorman's Queen and Country. "Frank is a young man who's got this outlook"and this was the key for me"that everything is going to be great," Turner says. "What's fun about Frank is that he is Emma's equal. He's not bowing down to her at all. If anything, he provokes her in ways that the others wouldn't. It was great fun to play with the absurdity of the situations"looking back, the rules can be ridiculous to our eyes, but in that moment, in that world, for those people, they were everything, and that's what they lived by."

Although Knightley can barely contain his disdain for Churchill, Emma's affections for him appear to grow. Meanwhile, she begins to set in motion a match between Harriet and the vicar of the local parish, Mr. Elton, played by Josh O'Connor, who gained fame as a young Prince Charles on the acclaimed Netflix drama The Crown. "At the beginning of the story, he is essentially trying to stamp his status on the community," says O'Connor of Elton. "He's trying to make his argument for being the top rung among the landed gentry. We see him arriving in the church and all the school girls turning their heads. He's a bit of a rock star and thriving on having everyone's attention, hanging on his every word."

O'Connor based his approach to the role on a priest from his own childhood in Southampton. "Whatever he does, it's like God's guiding him," he says. "So, when he does a sermon, Elton believes he's not speaking. The sermon starts and suddenly God is using his body as a vessel. It does help the performance because, ultimately, priests are pretty close to actors. They take to their stage every Sunday to their congregation."

Although Emma might believe that Harriet is a suitable bride for Elton, Elton has his design on someone far more well-bred, namely Emma. When his awkward proposal turns uncomfortably aggressive, Emma is at a loss as to how she could have so wrongly misread the situation. She's particularly dismayed that she advised Harriet to reject a proposal from respectable farmer Robert Martin, of whom Harriet is quite fond. Elton is also shocked, specifically because he cannot quite believe that any woman could possibly reject him.

"I'm going to steal a phrase that Autumn used"he's definitely a creep in crisis," O'Connor says. "He just genuinely believes he's God's gift. He genuinely adores Emma. Had it gone the other way, had he proposed to Emma and she'd said, 'Oh my goodness, I thought you'd never ask,' I might be the lead in a romantic comedy. But the reality is that she's not interested. All I kept thinking is, if you genuinely thought you are a pinnacle of society, and Emma, when you say to her, 'I love you. Shall we be together forever?' and she says no, your reaction, if you genuinely believe that she's going to say yes, is one of absolute shock."

Afterward, scandals continue to mount apace. An embarrassed Elton departs for a brief sabbatical and returns after just six weeks newly married to the gauche Mrs. Elton (Tanya Reynolds). Further, a mysterious someone"could it be Knightley?"has made a generous gift of a piano to Jane Fairfax (Amber Anderson), the beautiful, talented niece of exceptionally talkative spinster Miss Bates (Miranda Hart).

Although she would never admit it, Emma is consumed by jealousy for Jane Fairfax, possibly the only young woman around who could steal the spotlight from her, and Miss Bates' endless relating of Jane's comings and goings drive Emma to distraction.

Gifted comedic actress Miranda Hart was excited to tackle the role of Miss Bates. "I love to champion the more vulnerable women in a community and make sure they are portrayed without pity but actually celebrated for being unique and wonderful despite their obvious quirks and sometimes irritations," says Hart. "I understand she was one of Austen's favorite characters, which brings a little bit of responsibility… She doesn't play the victim in her circumstances but accepts them, is forgiving and incredibly kind. She is utterly adorable. You just might want to sometimes say to her, 'Please, please, just stop talking for a moment could you, Miss B?' Bless her."

Broadbent adds: "Miranda Hart just has Miss Bates down to a T. Miss Bates is a character who makes you laugh and breaks your heart. I think Miranda does that beautifully. She and Bill Nighy underpin what I would call our newer group."

In one painful moment, Emma's frustration boils over, leading her to make a shocking and brutal social faux pas"insulting Miss Bates to such a degree that it borders on scandal. Her actions incur the wrath of Knightley, who is furious that Emma would behave so poorly. And it's in that moment that Emma finally realizes that his opinion of her matters more than anyone's, and that perhaps it's time she stopped meddling in others' lives and began to turn her attention to making herself a kinder, more considerate person, not unlike her dear friend, Harriet.

"With Austen, it's a comedy of characters," Broadbent says. "Frank Churchill is a bit of a villain. Emma is "queen bee", and she's got some way to run. You wonder what Knightley's doing around there. Mrs. Elton is just brilliantly extravagant, and Mr. Elton is so fundamentally flawed and such a social climber, there's a real comedy of manners going on with these people."

"This is an incredible love story between Emma and Mr. Knightley, but it's an incredible love story between two girls finding their way as best friends," adds de Wilde. "Even though I've indulged in a heightened reality, my ultimate goal is to remind people that all these characters are very painfully human."

About The Production

Emma. unfolds over the course of four seasons in the sleepy enclave of Highbury, and Autumn de Wilde knew precisely how she wanted to represent every part of that very eventful year. Working closely with production designer, Kave Quinn and costume designer, Alexandra Byrne, the filmmaker sought to create a colorful, vivid historical world inviting enough to transport audiences into the past.

"We started talking about the color rules and the world that we wanted to present," de Wilde says. "It's a very colorful period. Color was how you showed your wealth and status. We all committed to pushing this heightened colorful world to the limit, but the origin of our color story was based on historical research. I obsessively poured over fashion illustrations of the period as well as the gorgeous exaggerations and wit of Georgian caricatures."

Offers Quinn: "It's amazing working with a director who's from a visual background. She just wanted to create a totally beautiful and unique version of Emma. What we are trying to achieve was something uniquely period, trying to incorporate the Georgian colors, which quite often aren't always seen in many films. The critical thing is trying to coordinate the costume and the color of the design together right from the beginning."

In addition to the familiar diaphanous white, the filmmakers wanted to include a rainbow of pastels and bright yellows, oranges, pinks and blues that were in vogue during the era. "A very good example is Chippendale furniture," says Quinn, whose credits include Trainspotting, Far From the Madding Crowd and the recent Judy Garland biopic, Judy. "That was all painted bright, bright colors. It's not the way you see it now because all the colors have faded back and you just see the wood, but it wasn't like that."

The filmmaking team sought inspiration by visiting Sir John Soane's Museum in London, the institution devoted to one of the foremost architects of the Regency era. Soane was a professor of architecture at England's Royal Academy and a dedicated collector of paintings, sculpture, architectural fragments and models, books, drawings and furniture. "It's a time capsule of the period," Quinn says. "Autumn was really influenced by going to this museum and seeing his use of color."

One of the most daunting challenges was finding a location that could stand in as the Woodhouse residence, Hartfield, and one that could be decorated in keeping with the filmmakers' aims"no easy feat given that many historic properties are landmarks belonging to the National Trust and cannot be altered in any fashion. They landed at Firle Place, an East Sussex manor house. Although the structure was built in the 15th century, the exterior stone cladding of the residence is Georgian in style, which suited the production perfectly.

"What was amazing about Firle Place is that it is a Tudor house with a Georgian Baroque building added onto it," Quinn explains. "Since that period, they haven't really changed the house radically. There are no Victorian additions. It's pretty much preserved as it was in the late 18th century. The family and the Trust that owns the house were very excited about us filming there. It was absolutely incredible what they allowed us to do to their beautiful building."

Working very carefully to ensure that nothing was damaged, Quinn and her team added foam moldings in certain places and created painted panels that were applied to the walls of the central corridor: "Basically, we went from a white hallway to a paneled, ornately-decorated hallway," she says.

"Quite often, when you work on location, you're so limited by what you can paint and what you can wallpaper, and it's full of precious furniture and there are certain things you can or can't move," adds set decorator Stella Fox. "We painted absolutely every single room. Every single pair of drapes was made for the house. We brought in all our own furniture, Autumn was always encouraging of a boldness throughout the entire film. Costume, design, set decoration, she really pushed everybody to go for a bolder but a really elegant look. It was like working in a doll's house. Each room had its own color palette going on."

Floral patterns also became an important part of the design"not only were they aesthetically pleasing, but they also helped the viewer track the changing seasons. "It really helps tell the story properly," Fox says. "The book follows the farming season, so I think it is really integral to be able to play those seasons out. Flowers is one of the obvious ways to show that."

For the local haberdashery, where several of the film's key encounters take place, Quinn and her team brought the same colorful touches to the set, constructed inside the village hall of a small English town. "It just was perfect, facing some houses on the other side of the river," the production designer says. "It was like this shop had a window on the whole village. Rather than doing drapery shop fittings that were dark, we wanted to make them bright and colorful, a little bit like a Georgian version of the shop from Little House on the Prairie."

To accurately capture the culture and customs of the village residents, director de Wilde chose to organize a two-week rehearsal period with the actors to allow them to familiarize themselves with the rules of etiquette that guided 19th century English life and to study movement with coach Alexandra Reynolds.

"I wasn't interested in modernizing the movement at all," explains de Wilde. "I wanted the actors to get comfortable with the way they needed to walk, the way they needed to hold their hands. The thing I was going to fall on my sword for in this film was sincerity. I was going to create this screwball comedy and a heightened sense of reality, but it all had to be based in sincerity. By practicing and rehearsing with these rules, by the time we started filming, it was second nature, so it didn't feel superficial. Also, there's something so sexy about how little people were allowed to touch each other. When Emma and Knightley touch hands for the first time, it should feel electric."

The young actors found the experience incredibly useful to help anchor their performances in the mores and attitudes of the time. "This is the first period movie that I've ever done, so it was a complete education for me in each arena of these people's lives," says Harriet actress Mia Goth. "We were very lucky to have those two weeks of rehearsals, not only because we had the opportunity to dive into key scenes, but we also had the etiquette trainer and a dialect coach and a movement coach. I've never been on a set where they've given us so many tools at our disposal. It was also a wonderful time for us to bond and break through the ice."

Once cameras began to roll, de Wilde found the experience of working with the actors on set nothing short of thrilling. "I love directing," she says. "I love finding a language for each actor to speak with them. That's why I loved being a photographer, the intimacy of that connection when you start speaking as one. Keeping the whole machine going, it's an adrenaline rush, and it's terrifying. And I think I'm addicted to all of it."

Adds Taylor-Joy: "Autumn is the perfect person for this movie, and going onto set every single day, she collected a group of people that all are so sensitive, so loving, so dedicated to their job, you really felt you can go in there and try anything and you're going to have a safe environment. Autumn is completely and utterly unique, and the gentleness and the love, the beauty in everybody that she has brought to this"it's unlike any film I've ever done before in my life."

Period Finery: Styling Emma.

Just as color was a huge focal point for the sets, so it was for the costumes, designed by Academy Award®-winner Alexandra Byrne (Elizabeth: The Golden Age). "Autumn and I discussed using color palettes for each season, influenced by nature and landscape," Byrne says. "I worked with Autumn and Kave to achieve color and style to make Emma either at ease with her environment or at odds with it, to greater and lesser degrees, through her story arc."

Although Byrne is no stranger to period costume design, she still undertook weeks of study to get a deeper understanding of the clothing worn by both men and women during the Regency era. "Every period and every script needs specific research," she says. "I like to research a period as thoroughly as time allows to understand how everything should be. This enables me to make informed design decisions to support the story the director is choosing to tell. Many museums have original clothes for this period; the real garments helped me to understand the fashion plates"the weight of fabrics, home sewing techniques and adaptations of earlier dresses to meet the latest fashion."

She first focused most of her attention on Taylor-Joy's stylish, wealthy heroine who has ample resources and a taste for the latest trends. "Emma's story is the backbone of the story," Byrne says. "Women's fashions were just starting to be published in journals, and Emma would have harvested this information. She is wealthy and indulged and has a dressmaker rather than relying on her own sewing speed and ability. Consequently, she has an extensive wardrobe for each season."

The eye-catching hats Emma wears to complement her most fashionable looks became a key part of her wardrobe. "The hats and bonnets are all based on real pieces or fashion plates," Byrne says. "Autumn loved the way that the actors changed the way they moved to make eye contact with each other in some of the more funnel-shaped bonnets."

"I've never done a job before where I've been so aware of absolutely every single thing on my body and all of my surroundings as a way to tell the story," Taylor-Joy offers. "If you're wearing a coat that has an incredible back"and Emma, you know she knows it's got an incredible back"all of a sudden, I'm delivering the line over my shoulder, showing the back of the coat. It's a totally different layer to being able to tell a story."

By contrast, Harriet's wardrobe is more modest, though she comes to adopt some of Emma's haute style. "Harriet is a boarder at Mrs. Goddard's school and has a small private allowance," Byrne says. "She is in quite an elevated position with the small world of the school but completely unworldly in the sphere of Emma. Emma opens Harriet's horizons, but with her own agenda. She happily gives Harriet her last season's clothes and influences her style to suit her own agenda."

For Goth, Byrne's costumes were integral to unlocking her character. "We had about four costume fittings before we ever stepped into a rehearsal room, so we kind of built the character together in many ways," Goth says. "She was instrumental in my understanding of Harriet, and who she is in that world, and how a young girl of that time would carry herself."

To dress the men in the film, Byrne based her designs on research and compiled mood boards and fabric samples before talking through choices with de Wilde and the actors. "I met with Bill and Autumn to discuss our thoughts for Mr. Woodhouse," Byrne says. "Bill and I then tried existing pieces of costume to get an idea of shape, proportion, silhouette, color, scale and developed his wardrobe. We decided on the restricted oatmeal palette as an expression of Mr. Woodhouse's obsessive and restrictive lifestyle."

For the younger gentleman, Byrne took inspiration from the novel's descriptions of both Knightley and Churchill and designed costumes that would visually match up with their personalities. "They are two very different men, and Jane Austen gives very clear information about them which informed the choices I made for them," Byrne says. "Callum Turner and Johnny Flynn are also very different actors"all these factors help to build character and style in clothes."

Marese Langan designed hairstyles for Emma and the other women in the story based on popular trends from 1815 and then embellished them with a bit of artistic license to complement Byrne's costumes. "I took inspiration from Alex's beautiful, delicate costume silhouettes and color palette," Langan says. "I wanted to create makeup and hairstyles that would also work in harmony with the necklines and bonnet shapes while expressing some of each character's personality."

Langan included seasonal flowers"both real and artificial"in the hairstyles to reinforce the florals glimpsed elsewhere in the film and to again help track the progression of the seasons. "We were fortunate to have a florist working for the art department," Langan says. "They gave us fresh flowers that were accurate for the period, and we tried to correspond to the season changes. We also used additional silk, wax and paper flowers."

The time required to put on the styles of the period before shooting each day gave the actors an opportunity to prepare before cameras rolled. "Before you go to set, you're in hair and make up for a good two hours every day," Goth says. "While it can be sometimes a test of your patience, it's actually incredibly useful to have that time to process everything that you have to do. Knowing that's exactly what a girl of the Regency era would have had to have gone through each day, to get dressed to that extent, was a real bridge in my understanding of Harriet. Even just looking in the mirror, you're so far removed from who you see in your day-to-day life."

Soundtrack And Score: The Music Of Emma.

When it came time to make choices about the soundtrack for Emma., de Wilde had a musical plan for the film that included traditional folk music, 18th and 19th century classical music as well as original score. In addition to this, de Wilde decided that opera could play an important role in poking fun at Emma's vanity as well as the repression and restrictions of middle class social life in Jane Austen's world. "At the opening of the film, I wanted the music to let the audience know that although we were going to fall in love with Emma's magical world"and misguided intentions"no one would be spared the sword of satire."

She knew that she wanted to find a composer who could create musical themes for each character, underscore the emotion in the story, heighten the comedic moments and connect the musical collage of all these influences, seamlessly. In the hunt for the right composer, de Wilde decided that she was looking for a distinctive musical whimsy in the score for Emma. that could carry the audience through ridiculous comedic moments, terrible heartbreak and poetic romance. When she discovered composer, Isobel Waller-Bridge, de Wilde knew she had found the perfect collaborator for her vision.

"Isobel has a sparkling wit, intelligence and sense of humor to her work," de Wilde says. "She knew the book and all the characters in Emma. from top to bottom. That, along with her talent and musical storytelling ability, bonded me to her immediately."

Waller-Bridge, who had applied a deft hand to her sister Phoebe Waller-Bridge's acclaimed series Fleabag, proved to be the perfect choice. For Waller-Bridge, the project represented an exciting creative opportunity. "When Autumn approached me to write the score for Emma., her vision for the music was already very established," Waller-Bridge says. "Straight away, Autumn spoke to me about Prokofiev's symphonic work, 'Peter and the Wolf' for its illustrative use of instrumentation to personify characters. She also shared with me that A Room With a View was one of her favorite films, and much to do with its narrative use of music, specifically opera.

"For our Emma. score, Autumn asked that we chose specific instruments for each character and illustrate the personality of these characters through the orchestration," Waller-Bridge continues. "Autumn and I spoke in depth about how she felt the music's presence should feel exaggerated, as if the conductor was reacting to the action in real time. Autumn's vision for the score was that the music should never feel background, and as our process unfolded, Autumn named our orchestra 'the misbehaving orchestra.'"

The filmmaker also discussed including specific recordings of pieces from the period with which she has a personal relationship. "Glenn Gould's interpretation of the Beethoven Piano Concerto and Haydn's Farewell Symphony are personally significant to Autumn, and the inclusion of these pieces from the period presented important information about how the score should be shaped and designed around them," Waller-Bridge says.

Opera also played an important role. "From the beginning of our process, Autumn was already keen to explore the use of Italian opera, as a way to exaggerate Emma's vanity, and privilege, from the very first moment we meet her," Waller-Bridge says. "We then developed this idea of using the voice to illustrate Emma's emotional journey as her story unfolds"her confidence, and her vulnerability. Going on from this, we began a process of choosing an instrument to thematically associate with each character."

Emma's instrument became the harp, Mr. Knightley's instrument was the French horn, Harriet's instrument was a folk violin, and Mr. Elton's instrument became the bassoon. "On a broader level, Autumn spoke about how other instruments could be used to signal emotional events"for example, the flute signals excitement in the characters," Waller-Bridge says. "We first hear an excited flute when we are introduced to Mr. Knightley, and we then hear a playfully fluttering flute for when Harriet is first forming her relationship with Emma, and when her matchmaking begins. Autumn had choreographed almost every scene as a dance, so there was already so much rhythm and musicality in the action."

Waller-Bridge brought on the talented composer David Schweitzer to collaborate with her on the score. "David's experience with writing music for animation was especially valuable in spotting the music specifically to the picture to support the choreography of the scenes," she says.

"We are both based in London and, as it happened, Isobel's studio was undergoing renovations when Emma.," Schweitzer adds. "So we decided to work together out of the two rooms in my studio. We were also loaned a beautiful 1808 Broadwood pianoforte by the production"one of the three that are played by the cast in the film"so we were able to set it up in the studio and record it, and that was a fun way to start bouncing ideas around between each other."

Says de Wilde: "Jane Austen herself owned a collection of more than 500 hand-copied pieces of music, many of which were folk songs she adored. This novel is a satire of the class system as well as a brilliant reconstruction of small-town life, and it was interesting to remind people of the important role folk music played not only in the drawing rooms of polite society but also in the heart of every village."

This was a big reason why it was important to de Wilde to find an actress not only who could embody the role of Jane Fairfax but an actress who was an accomplished classical pianist as well. "Amber Anderson worked closely with me to develop Jane Fairfax's musical repertoire," de Wilde says. "Her talents as a musician really helped bring a musical comedy aspect to the piano battle scene, which outlines Emma's hilarious jealous behavior." Every live musical performance in the film was actually learned, played and sung by the actors. Anya Taylor-Joy, Johnny Flynn and Anderson dedicated many extra hours to preparing their musical performances in Emma.

Flynn and de Wilde bonded early on their present and past lives in the music industry and their love of folk music. Already a fan of Flynn's music, de Wilde would eventually ask him to write a song for the film""Queen Bee" appears on the end credits. "Autumn and I had bonded over music and our mutual love of certain bands and sounds and scenes and people from both our pasts," Flynn says. "When she asked me if I'd like to write a song for the film, I was thrilled. I felt like I intuitively knew what would work."

"The idea for 'Queen Bee' came to me through the perspective of Mr. Knightley singing to Emma," Flynn continues. "We've been in her perspective for the whole film, and you get to hear his take on things at the end. He holds her on a pedestal as his queen bee, but with tongue firmly in cheek as he teases her"in a loving way"as he has done throughout the story. But it should feel deeply romantic, too. Autumn sings on the recording, which we made over a few days at the end of last year. Almost one of the last pieces of the jigsaw in the film, she helped me shape the song and gave me ideas for how the tone could work and was intrinsic in its development. Her and Isobel were both such a joy to work with on the song, which I was so honored to be asked to write and sing."

Flynn says his experience of talking with de Wilde on set about which songs might work for a given sequence helped him connect more deeply with the events unfolding in the story as he was playing Knightley. "We'd be on set or be out on location, and Autumn would come and find me at the end of the day and say, 'I've had an idea about a folk song that might weave into the story,'" Flynn recalls. "Because I was living the story, being totally immersed in it, and then listening to music and going, 'Oh, this is really right for this bit,' that was really cool.'"

The juxtaposition of something as heartfelt and soulful as traditional folk music against a rigid society with tightly proscribed behaviors"and consequences for breaking with those conventions"seemed to speak to the larger thematic concerns underpinning the film, and Austen's brilliant novel.

"We have all these society moments where all the rules apply about how people engage with each other at these dinners and balls, and the music is, for the most part, quite true to what these characters would hear in their grand parties and balls," Flynn says. "But then, the melodies might break down into something more indigenous and folk-inspired, which will hopefully represent their inner lives a bit more.

"The story is often about how people really feel, despite the way they have to behave," he adds. "The music can represent that through the breaking down of this very uptight, prim classical music"the melody might descend into something more heartfelt or organic."

Emma
Release Date: February 13th, 2020