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 (film) Austen’s feminist satire on Regency gender economics," drawing attention not only to the financial plight of the Dashwoods but also to eighteenth-century women in general. In the United States, Sony and Columbia Pictures released "Sense and Sensibility" on a slow schedule compared to mainstream films, first premiering it on 13 December 1995. Believing that a limited release would position the film both as an "exclusive quality picture" and increase its chances of winning Academy Awards, Columbia dictated that its first weekend involve only seventy cinemas in the US; it opened in eleventh place in terms of box office takings and