Sense and Sensibility (film) 1995, though some of the actors met with Thompson the previous year to help her conceptualise the script. Lee eventually cast all but one of them: Hugh Grant (as Edward Ferrars), Robert Hardy (as Sir John Middleton), Harriet Walter (as Fanny Ferrars Dashwood), Imelda Staunton (as Charlotte Jennings Palmer), and Hugh Laurie (as Mr. Palmer). Amanda Root had also worked with Thompson on the screenplay, but had already committed to star in the 1995 film "Persuasion". Commenting on the casting of Laurie, whom she had known for years, Thompson has said, "There is no one [else] on the planet who
Sense and Sensibility Austen "wrestled with epistolary form" in previous writings and, with the publication of "Sense and Sensibility," "announced her victory over the constraints of the letter." Favret contends that Austen's version of the letter separates her from her "admired predecessor, Samuel Richardson" in that Austen's letters are "a misleading guide to the human heart which, in the best instances, is always changing and adapting." According to Favret, with the character of Elinor Dashwood is an "anti-epistolary heroine" whose "inner world" of thoughts and feelings does not find "direct expression in the novel, although her point of view controls the story." "Sense