Daisy Edgar-Jones discussed playing Elinor Dashwood in interviews published Oct. 16, 2026, one with Bustle and one with E! News. For Edgar-Jones, Elinor Dashwood’s quiet self-control carries the weight of a family’s needs: money worries, other people’s heartbreak and her younger sister Margaret’s education. The 28-year-old plays Elinor in director Georgia Oakley’s new adaptation of Jane Austen’s Sense and Sensibility, which makes the bond between the Dashwood sisters its central love story.
Edgar-Jones first read Austen’s 1811 novel as a teenager and recognized something in Elinor immediately. “I really love characters like Elinor that are often overlooked or misunderstood,” she said.
Her reading of the character centers on how much Elinor feels while caring for everyone around her. “She’s kind of this parentified child who’s become very adept at putting herself aside to support others,” Edgar-Jones said. She described Elinor as having a “deep, deep, deep well of love and pain.”
Oakley’s approach gave that emotional life a particular setting. Edgar-Jones said the director wanted the Dashwoods to feel “really raw and earthy and quite undone in a really beautiful way,” with the sisters’ relationship driving the film. “And I feel like she really achieved that.”
Edgar-Jones also sees room for each adaptation to bring something different to Austen. She said the people making the films, along with the circumstances in which they’re made, shape how the stories come to life: “What Austen was writing about was the human experience.”