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 of society by finding a male protector," women such as Mrs. Ferrars and Lucy Steele demonstrate how women can "themselves become agents of repression, manipulators of conventions, and survivors." In order to protect themselves and their own interests, Mrs. Ferrars and Lucy Steele must participate in the same patriarchal system that oppresses them. In her chapter ""Sense and Sensibility:" Opinions Too Common and Too Dangerous" from her book "Jane Austen: Women, Politics, and the Novel," Claudia Johnson also performs a feminist reading of "Sense and Sensibility. She d"iffers from previous critics, especially the earliest ones, in her contention that "Sense