Daisy Edgar-Jones imagined Elinor Dashwood singing Dolly Parton’s “Here You Come Again” in her bedroom while preparing for Sense and Sensibility. For the 28-year-old actress, the song gave voice to feelings her Jane Austen character usually keeps contained.
“It just epitomises what it is to like love somebody – that heartbreak and slight female rage inside that you just want to let out,” Edgar-Jones said. “I really could imagine, if Elinor lived in a time with Dolly Parton, she’d be belting that around her bedroom in Barton [Cottage].”
Her listening also included Billie Holiday, Minnie Riperton, Alice Phoebe Lou, Julia Jacklin and Jessica Pratt. She plays Elinor in Georgia Oakley’s 2026 adaptation of Austen’s 1811 novel, alongside Caitriona Balfe, Esme Creed-Miles, George MacKay and Fiona Shaw.
The music helped her explore a character whose restraint conceals strong feelings. “She’s somebody that has such a strength and this deep well of emotion that she’s learned to button up,” Edgar-Jones said. “And I love the journey she goes on where she becomes more comfortable with embracing that wilder side of herself. I was just so excited to sink my teeth into playing her.”
Her connection to Austen began as a teenager, when her mother gave her the books and she read them all. She associates that discovery with first love and learning who you are. As she put it: “It’s a rite of passage to read them all when you’re a teenager, and you’re finding yourself and falling in love for the first time and experience that personal growth.”
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