At last, some news about BECOMING JANE!

Anne Hathaway, who will star as Jane Austen (so we might as well get used to the idea), told Empire a little about the film.

The film, written by TV scribe Kevin Hood (Man and Boy, Medics) is not a traditional biopic, instead taking a portion of Austen’s life that reflects the wild romanticism of her beloved novels.

Dude. Wild romanticism? Jane Austen? The heck?

“It’s the time at which she’s been writing for a bit and has just started work on Pride and Prejudice,” Hathaway continues. “Largely it’s based on a biography by Claire Tomlin (sic) which suggests that Jane had a love affair with an Irishman that nobody knew about. The movie is about how that love affair affected her as a writer and a woman. The choices she had to make about it are heartbreaking. It’s actually a very dramatic story that winds up resembling a lot of her novels. You see shades of all of her major works in it.”

Nobody knew about Tom Lefroy? After she was profligate about sitting out dances with him? Everybody knew about it. And it’s been in every biography, just about. However, this bit sounds promising:

“Jane Austen is one of the most special literary figures. I don’t want to short change her in any way.”

Good to know. We’ll be holding you to that, by the way.

Alert Janeite Erandika wrote to tell us about some film clips from P&P3 at Yahoo! She thinks one of them might be new. Apparently there were originally some others but they’ve been taken down…but be of good faith, perhaps they’ll be put up again.

We also found some production photos on the site, many of which we haven’t seen yet.

Also, Alert Janeite Marybeth wrote to tell us that Keira Knightley will be appearing on several talk shows next week (and presumably clips will be shown)…

- The Daily Show with Jon Stewart, November 9
- Regis and Kelly, November 9
- Late Night with Conan O’Brien, November 11

The Oregonian wants you!

A reporter from the Oregonian would like to interview some Portland-area Janeites about the continuing popularity of Jane Austen’s work. If you are interested in participating, post in the comments, enter your e-mail in the e-mail field (only the Editrix will see it, and will hold it in confidence) and we’ll contact you with the reporter’s information.

Time is of the essence, so please let us know as soon as possible. Thanks!