Hayley Atwell on What Drew Her to Howards End

MCU's Atwell breathes life into E.M. Forster's classic.

By Matt Fowler

MCU star Hayley Atwell recently appeared at the Television Critics Association press tour (where she also spoke briefly to us about wanting her own Peggy Carter Marvel movie) to appear on a panel for her new Starz miniseries, Howards End.

Atwell spoke about what was different about this four-part adaptation of E.M. Forster's famous novel given that it's been adapted for the screen before, most famously in a 1992 movie starring Anthony Hopkins and Emma Thompson.

Mostly, Atwell was attracted to the fact that Manchester by the Sea's Kenneth Lonergan was the one molding the work this time around. "I think Kenny Lonergan’s adaptation is very fresh," she said. "It has a lot of energy to it, and there are many scenes of overlapping with the dialogue. So, although we stuck to the script, the script had this fantastic kind of lightness to it and this wit, which meant that despite the constrictions of the costumes and the period, we did feel that we wanted to make it as accessible as possible to modern audiences by not making it feel mannered or held."

Matthew Macfadyen and Hayley Atwell in Howards End.

Atwell then spoke about how the perception is, for the most part, that Edwardian-era women were stiff and restrained. "I remember looking at these photographs of [the women], and a lot of the time, of course, back then with photography, they had to remain very, very still for long periods of time so the photo wasn’t blurred. And it was almost like we decided, therefore, that back then, that’s what they were like. In terms of their everyday life, they would be like ghosts."

"That was an important thing for Hettie [Macdonald], our director, to make sure that we changed that" Atwell smiled. "That we breathed life into these characters without making them in any way feel stilted or kind of mannered, I suppose, without, kind of, falling into the trap of period drama acting that makes it so inaccessible."

Howards End airs in Starz in 2018.

Matt Fowler is a writer for IGN and a member of the Television Critics Association (TCA). Follow him on Twitter at @TheMattFowler and Facebook at http://ift.tt/2aJ67FB.

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