Listen Ben Lloyd-Hughes is an actor that gets Austen. He understands that subtext is king in these kinds of stories. Love hearing him talk about how acting a scene is about saying one thing with words but another with the eyes or body language. And boy does this understanding shine through in his scenes.
Take the argument about the spinet. Alexander enters and gets upset about Charlotte playing it. This could have been a simple one note emotional scene. AC is angry. But instead we get this really rich nuanced series of emotions.
He comes to the door and looks surprised and confused. He doesn’t immediately stop her. Then he seems to remember himself and takes a hesitant step forward. He says “Stop” but not in a commanding shout. It’s this half-strangled thing. As if he is choked with emotion and he needs her to stop because he doesn’t want to keep feeling that emotion.
Then he is in the room, the music stops, he is still talking in that lowered tone. Until he turns to Augusta, then it grows stronger and stronger still when Leo comes racing in (goodness I love those girls!). Now we get the grumpy, angry guardian but not for long.
Then we jump to the library and there is more bickering but Charlotte is more upset than he is (and this isn’t about Rose Williams but she also does amazing!). Indeed it’s like he can feel her slipping away, he has had this conversation with many other governesses before.
But this time he wants her to stay. He doesn’t want her to leave and it’s so clear in the way he asks her if she wishes to leave. Like there were so many ways to say that line and he picked the one that makes him sound just a little bit scared at the thought.
And THEN we get three syllables that probably weren’t meant to become some kind of fandom call but GUYS. “Tomorrow then” is gonna be on shirts and stickers because it’s ICONIC. And that is a 100% down to the way he says it. Just. YEah.
