Ross Kelly: Hello, welcome back. Now remember the beautiful Elizabeth Bennet in Pride and Prejudice? Well, Miss Bennet's now got a new role as a single mum with dreadlocks, and what would Mr. Darcy think?
(They show clips from This Year's Love)
(After the clip, Jennifer is sitting with them. She is wearing a black shirt.)
RK: Well, Jennifer Ehle, who played Sophie in that new film, but also played Elizabeth Bennet , joins us now. Nice to see you.
Jennifer Ehle: Nice to see you.
RK: Is it nice to play something so very different from the very prim and proper Elizabeth?
JE: Oh, well Elizabeth's not that prim and proper. But it was wonderful to play somebody who didn't have to be, didn't have to have warmth and be standing by her man, and you know�
Caren Keating: Yeah, but a lot of the parts you have played in the past have been this kind of very warm woman and everything else - this is quite a different sort of character, isn't she?
JE: Well she is, she's very very defensive, won't let anyone get anywhere near her at all.
CK: And you said those dreadlocks were real, that was not a wig?
JE (laughing): No! Well, I had them put in. It was my idea, so I could never really complain about it.
(Everyone laughs)
CK: How did they do that?
JE: Uh, I went to this place, they tie them on.
CK: Yeah.
JE: And there're done. They're very very heavy, they were down to sort of my waist, some of them were. They were all different lengths, all different colors.
CK: Yeah.
JE: And I had them in for about two and a half months.
CK: And could you just wash them?
JE: I could, the trouble is that I washed it about every day, and it never dried. So, all of my back was damp for two months. (laughs)
CK (laughing): No!
JE: I'm serious.
CK: And you were also off because you wore a nose stud in the film as well. And you offered to get your nose pierced for it?
JE: I think I did actually.
CK: Yeah. That would be particularly dreadful, it didn't have to be real, did it?
JE: No, thank goodness, we had a magnet. And you have half the magnet in the inside of your nose, and the other half on the outside.
RK: Well, it's slightly less painful, I suppose.
CK: And you hope you don't get a cold.
JE: Yes, you don't want to sneeze or sniff.
RK: Or you'll get a snotty magnet flying through the air, I suppose!
They all laugh.
RK: I'm sorry, I had to say that.
CK: Too much information!
RK: This Sophie who you play, she's a bit of an old toff, although she's this dreadlocked thing that lives in Camden in North London. Tell us about Sophie in the film.
JE: Sophie. Sophie is, uh, Sophie went to Rodin, and she's running away from that as fast as she can. She's been in abusive relationships, she's a single mum. But she lives on a barge, so she's still got the trendy, the trendy thing - and has the dreads. It's, uh, but she's unhappy. She's desperately unhappy and lonely.
CK: And it's about sort of 3 couples, isn't it?
JE: Yes, and in the space of a few years, they've all swapped partners. It's a La Ronde, yes.
CK: And you say that it showed you a different side of London?
JE: Yes! Well, it was just wonderful to be living in London and filming here, for one thing. And I got to know Camden quite well. One particular parking lot, very well.
They all laugh.
CK: You live in London anyway?
JE: I do. In a different bit of it, anyway.
CK: Well, we've got another clip from the film, and, well, you can better explain it afterwards! Take a look at it I guess and tell us what's happening!
(They show a clip of Jennifer and Douglas Henshall talking in a bar or restaurant.)
CK: Is he somebody that you have a relationship with in
JE: Yes, it starts right after that. That's just the beginning of it.
CK: So, when does this film open?
JE: Friday, tomorrow.
CK: Oh right! And you've seen it all then?
JE: Yes, I love it.
CK: Do you like going along and sitting in a cinema with you know, just a proper audience though, watching?
JE: I hadn't done that ever.
CK: No.
JE: I've been to an invited screening. Don't like watching myself, but the rest of the film is -
RK: So, as long as you can enjoy the whole rest of the film, you think it's a bit sort of embarrassing - you think it's embarrassing to watch yourself up there?
JE: Well, it's a bit of a shock. It's a bit of a shock to see what your face does.
CK: Were you with the rest of us on Sunday nights watching Pride and Prejudice?
JE: No ! (she starts laughing)
CK: You didn't do that, you'd probably had enough of it by that point. I love it when it kind of dragged out on Sundays, it's when you really look forward to the end of a weekend, isn't it?
RK: That became such a focal point in the nation's tube, when you were filming that, it was obviously beautifully done, so you knew that you were working for a quality show. But did you realize that the entire nation would get so gripped by that, Jennifer ?
JE: No idea at all. I think if I'd had any idea how many people would see it, I'd still be under a sofa somewhere in Derbyshire. I had no idea that it was going to be such a -
CK: We just think it's the thing that's going to follow you around for the rest of your life, too.
(Jennifer laughs.)
CK: It's not a bad thing to be following you around though.
JE: There are plenty of worse things.
CK: And your mother is an actress, Rosemary Harris.
JE: Yeah.
CK: And your father is a writer. Did your childhood consist of going around to different sets and theaters and sort of traveling around the world?
JE: Yes, we did, I changed schools 18 times. My father's American, and Mum's English, so we went back and forth, wherever she was working. My father's just a, he's a writer, he's not just a writer, but he's a writer, and they're fairly portable. And I'm an only child, so we were sort of a bit of a portable unit.
CK: So, from an early age, did you always want to act, having seen it at that close a range?
JE (laughing): No, I wanted to write actually, I'm not quite sure how I started acting, but it's fun.
RK: And when you chose acting, then, you could have I suppose, trained and worked in America. But you've chosen Britain. Why was that decision made?
JE: Well, I wanted a classical training, and so I wanted to come to drama school here. And then, I just love it. I love England, I love living in London.
CK: And you've got no American accent at all.
JE: It comes out.
CK: Oh does it?
JE: Mmmm�
CK: But did you, until you were 17, 18?
JE: Yes. I flipped back and forth 'cause whenever we came I would come over to school here, and I'd be teased, so I learnt an English accent. Then I'd go back to America, and the same thing would happen.
RK: At times, one learns to adapt.
CK: Good training.
JE: Good training for acting, yes.
CK: And any fancy for you and your mother to work together, is that something you would like to do?
JE: Yes, well, we have! Well, we haven't actually worked together, we've done - twice, we've shared a part. In The Camomile Lawn, which was on Channel 4 in about '92, we shared a part, and we just did a film called A Taste of Sunshine , directed by Istvan Szabo, where we also share.
RK: So, you play your mother's daughter?
JE: No actually, the same part.
CK: The same part, younger and older. That must be lovely, actually, to do.
JE: It is nice.
CK: If you get on well.
JE: It is nice, but unfortunately, we never get to be able to see each other because we're not in the same scenes.
CK: You have to find a project where you can be different people then.
JE: Mmmm.
RK: Well, well, well done, if nothing else for wearing those dreadlocks for two and a half months!
(They all laugh.)
JE: Thank you!
RK: Well done!
CK: The film is out tomorrow and it's called This Year's Love. Thank you very much Jennifer, lovely to see you.
JE: Thank you.