Getting Made-Uppier by the day
Alert Janeite Arwen posted the following information in comments:
A person claiming to know someone on the set of Becoming Jane posted a cast list on the IMDB message boards. I do not know if it true, but this is what the person said:
Anna Maxwell Martin is playing Cassandra, Jane’s sister
Julie Walters is playing Mrs Austen
James Cromwell is Mr Austen
Maggie Smith is Lady Gresham, an aristocratic landowner whose favourite nephew has fallen in love with Jane
Lucy Cohu is Jane’s half-French cousin who has been widowed but has designs on Jane’s brother, Henry
Ian Richardson plays Tom Lefroy’s cantankerous uncle
The person also said, “word is that Anne Hathaway is fantastic and her accent really spot on.” Also in the movie Lady Gresham does not like Jane Austen.
We are guessing that Lady Gresham’s nephew is NOT Tom Lefroy. We are further guessing that she is entirely…fictional.
Oh, and Eliza de Feuillide was not “half-French.” She was English, and had married a Frenchman, who was guillotined during the Terror for attempting to bribe a member of the Committee of Public Safety to dismiss charges against a neighbor. “Designs” on Henry? More like the other way around…actually both James and Henry Austen liked her and wanted to marry her. Apparently she liked being a widow very well indeed and had to be persuaded to give up her independence to marry Henry.
Also, Cassandra Austen was not present during Jane’s flirtation with Tom Lefroy. We only know about the bally thing because Jane wrote about it in letters to Cassandra. Obviously, had Cassandra been present, Jane would not have had to write letters to her about it, would she?
Say it with us…MADE UP STORY!
