Daisy Edgar‑Jones and Esmé Creed‑Miles lead new Austen‑style film as sisters

A decade before anyone put them in bonnets, Daisy Edgar-Jones met Esmé Creed-Miles on the 2017 Yorkshire set of coming-of-age drama Pond Life. “I was so blown away by her,” says Edgar-Jones, who was then 19, of her co-star, then 17. “[She] has this energy that is so compelling. She’s a wonderfully intelligent and sort of wild person, in the best way.”

The teenagers became fast friends and “had a really great summer of watching Love Island and shooting this indie film”.

Creed-Miles’ first impression of her co-star is equally vivid: “Daisy was unbelievably kind and talented. She put me at ease and I could tell I had a friend in her.” Admittedly, “it would be hard not to get on with Daisy. She’s just one of the loveliest people.”

Almost a decade on, the women are reunited on a much grander stage: Georgia Oakley’s gorgeous adaptation of Jane Austen’s 1811 debut novel, Sense and Sensibility, in which they star as sisters Elinor and Marianne Dashwood. “To already have that shorthand with Esmé and to feel a sort of sisterly feeling, made it so seamless,” says Edgar-Jones.

An Austen adaptation is a world away from a small budget indie, but this is no polite costume drama either. It’s a kaleidoscope of undone hair, mud, rage and running.

“I was really trying to get into what it might have felt like to live in Devon 200 years ago,” Oakley has said of her film’s unbridled aesthetic. “Steering away from this preconceived idea we have about Austen, that everything takes place in a stuffy drawing room.”

When Edgar-Jones, 28, appears on our video call, it’s 11am in London. She’s just off a call with Australian writer Tony McNamara about Mosquito, their upcoming comedy series. What does a Gucci, Boucheron and Estée Lauder brand ambassador wear when working from home? As it turns out, a striped rugby jumper, no discernible make-up and “sports shorts” from a morning workout: “It’s not my best look!”