Daisy Edgar-Jones & Esmé Creed-Miles Bring ‘Sense & Sensibility’ to Sydney

Wednesday in Sydney had a very particular kind of glamour. Not the flashbulbs-and-sirens kind, and not the fashion-week kind either — something a little softer, a little more literary. Daisy Edgar-Jones and Esmé Creed-Miles stepped out for a Sense and Sensibility photo call at Wendy’s Secret Garden, and honestly, it’s hard to think of a better setting for the two of them: a secret garden, in Sydney, for a Jane Austen adaptation. Some press tours just know what they’re doing.

The pair were the picture of composure as they posed together for photographers, marking the latest stop on a global press tour that has been steadily building momentum. With the film’s theatrical release set for October 16, the countdown is properly on now — and the campaign has that unmistakable feeling of a release team that believes it has something special on its hands.

They’ve been at this for a while, too. The Sydney appearance follows the movie’s Irish premiere earlier this month — where Daisy appeared alongside co-star Caitríona Balfe — and a London premiere that drew several of the film’s stars onto the red carpet. Each stop has added another layer of buzz, and Sydney was no exception.

What Sense and Sensibility Is All About

The official line from Focus Features and Working Title calls it “an irresistible new take on Jane Austen’s iconic Sense and Sensibility: a charming, witty, and deeply relatable story of love and sisterhood.” And look — they’re not wrong to lean on that word, relatable. Austen’s first published novel has survived more than two centuries precisely because the Dashwood sisters’ predicament keeps finding new generations of readers: suddenly poor, suddenly at the mercy of other people’s decisions, and trying to hold onto dignity while your heart does whatever it wants.

Edgar-Jones plays Elinor Dashwood — the “sense” of the title, the elder sister who keeps her feelings under lock and key — while Creed-Miles takes on Marianne, all passion and impulse and heartbreak worn right out in the open. It’s one of the great sister pairings in English literature, and casting it is everything. Get Elinor and Marianne wrong and the whole thing collapses; get them right and you can coast on chemistry alone. The early signs suggest the filmmakers got it very, very right.

A Cast Stacked With Serious Talent

Joining Daisy and Esmé are Caitríona Balfe, Bodhi Rae Breathnach, Frank Dillane, Herbert Nordrum, George MacKay, and Fiona Shaw. Read that list again. That’s not a cast, that’s a statement of intent.

Balfe, who spent the better part of a decade anchoring Outlander as Claire Fraser, brings exactly the kind of period-drama authority the film needs. MacKay — still best known for carrying 1917 on his shoulders in what was essentially one unbroken shot of acting — is the kind of actor who makes everything around him better. Shaw, who played the gloriously awful Aunt Petunia in the Harry Potter films and then stole every scene she was in on Killing Eve, could read a grocery list and make it menacing. Dillane, forever memorable as Nick Clark on Fear the Walking Dead, rounds out an ensemble that gives the two leads an enormously strong safety net.

The film was written by Diana Reid and directed by Georgia Oakley — two names that tell you a lot about the tone this adaptation is aiming for. Oakley made a serious impression with Blue Jean, her 2022 debut feature that earned BAFTA attention and announced a filmmaker with a real eye for character-driven drama. Reid is an acclaimed Australian author whose novels have been praised for their sharp, contemporary voice. Put those two sensibilities together with Austen and you’ve got something that could genuinely feel fresh rather than dutiful — which, for a novel that’s been adapted this many times, is the whole ballgame.

Why Another Adaptation — and Why Now

It’s a fair question. Sense and Sensibility is one of the most-filmed books in the English language. Ang Lee’s 1995 version — with Emma Thompson’s Oscar-winning screenplay, Kate Winslet as Marianne, Hugh Grant doing his floppy-haired best, and Alan Rickman as the definitive Colonel Brandon — is one of those adaptations people talk about in hushed tones. The BBC’s 2008 miniseries has its own devoted following. So what could possibly be left to say?

Plenty, apparently. And the timing is interesting. We’re in the middle of a genuine Austen moment: the novels keep getting rediscovered by young readers, the adaptations keep finding new audiences, and there’s a growing appetite for period stories told with a modern sensibility — pun very much intended. A Sense and Sensibility that leans into the wit and the sisterhood, told by a female director and writer, landing in the middle of awards season? That’s not a lazy remake. That’s a calculated play, and a smart one.

There’s also the simple fact that great stories don’t expire. The Dashwoods’ story — two sisters navigating love, money, and reputation in a world that gives women precious little control over any of them — doesn’t need updating to feel current. It just needs telling well. Austen understood something about the economics of romance that never goes out of style: who you marry was, and in some corners still is, a financial decision dressed up as a love story. Elinor’s restraint and Marianne’s recklessness aren’t just character traits; they’re survival strategies. That’s the kind of material actors dream about.

Daisy Edgar-Jones Is Having a Moment

It would be an understatement to say the timing is good for the film’s leading lady. Edgar-Jones has spent the last few years building one of the most interesting young careers in the business, and she did it the hard way — by being genuinely excellent, over and over, in wildly different things.

She broke through as Marianne Sheridan in 2020’s Normal People, the Hulu/BBC adaptation that turned her into an overnight sensation and earned her Golden Globe and BAFTA nominations. Then, instead of coasting on that, she went and did Fresh — a genuinely unsettling horror-thriller — followed by Where the Crawdads Sing, where she carried a massive literary adaptation as Kya, and Under the Banner of Heaven opposite Andrew Garfield. Last year she headlined Twisters, proving she could anchor a big summer blockbuster, and On Swift Horses showed her range once more in quieter, stranger territory.

Elinor Dashwood feels like the natural next step: a role that demands the same interior intensity she brought to Marianne Sheridan (a different Marianne, but the acting muscles overlap), wrapped in period trappings. If anyone can make Elinor’s famous restraint feel like a live wire instead of a locked door, it’s her.

Esmé Creed-Miles Steps Into the Spotlight

And then there’s Creed-Miles, who might just be the story-within-the-story here. She made her film debut as a child in Hannah back in 2017, and more recently drew serious acclaim for her work in ITV’s Mr Bates vs The Post Office — the drama that became a genuine national conversation in the UK. Marianne Dashwood is the kind of role that can change a career overnight: all feeling, no filter, and absolutely devastating when it goes wrong. It’s a big swing for a young actor, and the fact that she was cast opposite Edgar-Jones suggests the filmmakers saw something electric. The press tour photos certainly suggest the two have real chemistry — which, for a story about sisterhood, matters more than almost anything else.

The Road to October 16

With a little over two weeks to go until the film hits theaters, the Sydney photo call felt like a campaign shifting into its final gear. The Irish premiere, the London premiere, and now Sydney — the tour has been methodical, and the response at each stop has been warm. The trailer is out, the posters are up, and the conversation is building.

Will this Sense and Sensibility join the ranks of the great Austen adaptations, or will it be another handsome also-ran in a crowded field? That’s the question hanging over every stop of this press tour, and honestly, it’s the right question to ask. Austen adaptations live or die on a razor’s edge — one degree too reverent and they’re museum pieces; one degree too modern and they’re costume parties. The talent involved here suggests they know exactly where that edge is.

October 16 can’t come soon enough. In the meantime, Sydney got its moment in the secret garden — and Daisy and Esmé looked every bit like two women about to introduce Jane Austen to a whole new generation.

Source: Just Jared