Jennifer Ehle is ready to put down some roots. Or so she thinks. At
the age of 29, she's taken the plunge and bought her own place. It's
a one-bedroom flat in West London, and although Jennifer has finally
moved in (she bought it last October), the builders still haven't
moved out. And nor has the rubble.
"It needed a couple of things doing to it...central heating, a new plumbing system..." She waves her hand around - the list obviously goes on and on. "I moved in two weeks ago and I love it. I don't have any sinks though."
This, she explains, is why the pots gets washed in the bath and why she smells of vinaigrette (she doesn't). "As soon as I bought it, I thought, 'I can't do this. I'm off to Timbuktu.' I've never really had a home, you see. It sounds pathetic, but we moved around a lot when I was growing up, so the past two weeks is the most settled I've ever felt. I had no idea it would affect me so deeply. It's fantastic. But I would love a sink..."
The strain of living in a building site is beginning to take its toll on Ehle. Although she's given up smoking - her bag is stuffed full of Nicorette chewing gum - she later confesses that she caved in last night and smoked herself silly.
Ehle (pronounced Ee-lee) is looking great, but then you wouldn't expect anything less. She's just got back from a holiday in Cuba with an artist girlfriend and has a fabulous tan. "It was the first real holiday of my life," she says. "I've always wanted to go there and just drink in the colours...It was so relaxing."
Despite a reputation for being difficult, she is fantastic company. Ehle is coming out of her shell, if she ever had one. The former Miss Elizabeth Bennet confesses that she has just discovered beer, for a start. "I can't believe it," she laughs. "I'd never got the point of pubs - but now, lager, I love it."
It all seems a million miles away from the English-rose roles we're
accustomed to seeing her in. First there was Calypso in The
Camomile Lawn and then her award-winning portrayal of Jane
Austen's Lizzy Bennet in Pride and Prejudice. There's no
greater tribute to her skill than this: despite her polished vowels,
Ehle is actually American - or half-American to be precise.
Born in Winston-Salem in North Carolina, she's the only child of the American writer John Ehle and the British actress Rosemary Harris. Her mother's career determined the family's whereabouts, as they moved round America and took frequent, long-stay trips to England. Ehle went to 18 schools before ending up at the Central School of Speech and Drama in London, where she decided to rid herself of her American twang "because I knew I'd never get a job as an English actress with an American accent."
At first, she says, it was like a straitjacket on. "There were certain things I just couldn't express. For example, I found it very hard to express enthusiasm. In America, it would be 'Like great! Hey wow! That's cool! Ohmigawwd!'" She reverts to her native accent. "It took a while to find those expressive sounds."
Jennifer's mother thought she'd follow in her father's footsteps and become a writer. "So did I," she enthuses. "I'd still like to some day. Although I'm sort of frightened of it because it might turn out to be what I was always supposed to do and the acting might turn out to be a bit of a distraction. But I'm beginning to think about it again. I've been a sporadic journal keeper for as long as I can remember."
Ehle's early diaries doubtless recorded her favorite actress: Olivia Newton-John - "I was obsessed with Xanadu, the only film I saw twice in two days. I was only 9, I hasten to add, and I saw it again recently and it was quite a shock." She also fancied being Michelle Pfeiffer in Grease II - "My father wouldn't let me see Grease." However, later diaries might also reveal a woman who was slow to tune in to the opposite sex - "I got into boys very late. I didn't put out signals for years."
"I think it was playing Calypso that helped me," she states openly. "I didn't see myself as anything that she was - seductive, beautiful or glamorous. And then they gave me this fantastic makeover and I came out as this blonde..." - she grasps for a word - "THING. It was so alien to me. And then I was brave enough to do the nudity and at that point I don't think anybody had seen me naked for years and years. All of a sudden I was in the tabloids - 'Sex-mad Jenni Does is Froggy-Style' - after I filmed Melissa in France.
The media had a field day as her (previously) private life suddenly became the subject of much tabloid speculation. There were "Ten Drop-Dead Gorgeous Facts About Jennifer" and gossip about the pent-up passion of Pride and Prejudice, which Ehle was quote as saying made the book "so sexy". They even raked over the very cold embers of her first big romance with fellow actor Toby Stephens, whom she'd met on the set of The Camomile Lawn. It was attention that Ehle claims not to understand. "When I was a teenager, I wasn't very sexual. I didn't have any sexual confidence. And I really didn't think they'd use any of the nudity stuff, because in my mind I thought people wouldn't want to see it. But it was quite liberating."
Today, she says, she's working on being flirty. "I'm trying to
become less responsible altogether," she says. But if changes
are afoot, the one thing that remains stable is her brilliant
career. Her latest two films, This Year's Love (in which
she played a dreadlocked single mum), and Bedrooms & Hallways,
have been highly rated. Both explore the complicated love lives of
late 20- and 30- somethings "trying to get it right". Just like
real life then? "Me and my friends don't have enough of a love
life for it to get complicated," she cackles.
The most well-documented relationship Ehle had was with Colin Firth, when the pair filmed Pride and Prejudice - the constant tension and sparring between Miss Elizabeth and Mr Darcy seemed to fan the flames off-set, too. "We talked about it a lot - that 'God we fancy the pants off each other, but I just hate your guts' thing." But once the cameras stopped, it wasn't long before the clapperboard came down on the romance too. Ehle is philosophical about it. "It's so hard to have a relationship in this business. I don't want to do it again, unless it's unavoidable - it's just not worth it."
She's not playing the tortured spinster yet, however. She lets
slip, when we discuss the fantastic dreadlocks she had for This
Year's Love, that they had caused a few embarrassing moments
between her and her then boyfriend. "I wanted to have big hair my
whole life," she starts. Is it the Olivia Newton-John thing? "It
is! It is! I loved having this whole personality on my
head, but they did cause problems. I'd wake up in the morning
and some of the dreads would have slipped their knots. Very
embarrassing."
A high point in the next few months promises to be the release of her next movie, The Taste of Sunshine. A $25-million holocaust epic, shot in Budapest, it stars Ehle alongside Ralph Fiennes. "Ralph is such a brilliant, generous actor. He was a treasure to work with." Then she pulls back from the brink of luvviedowm to talk about the French lessons she's just signed up for "as a bit of mental aerobics. I'd love to speak it well."
And what about her plans for the milennium? "I'd love to take off to the wilderness, but I've a feeling that everyone else is going to go there." She sighs. "I suppose it'll be just like the city."