'Persuasion' Director on Why Henry Golding's Charm Was Wrong for Wentworth

Despite his status as a leading man, Henry Golding wasn't the right fit to portray Captain Frederick Wentworth, Anne Elliot's romantic interest in Persuasion, the film's director told Newsweek.

Golding, who rose to prominence as the romantic lead in Crazy Rich Asians, portrays Mr. Elliot in the Netflix drama, and Carrie Cracknell explained it was the actor's "very fizzy, immediate charm" that made him a better fit for Anne's cousin, Mr. Elliot.

Why Henry Golding's Charm Was Wrong for Wentworth

Persuasion follows Anne (Dakota Johnson), a young woman who was forced to give up her romance with a penniless sailor named Wentworth (Cosmo Jarvis) only for the pair to reconnect several years later after he has become successful.

By then Anne believes it is too late to rekindle their relationship, but that doesn't stop her from wondering if it's possible to have a second chance. That's when her cousin, and heir to the Elliot family fortune, Mr. Elliot, comes into her life.

Now, by modern standards it may seem strange to consider romantic prospects with one's cousin, but Mr. Elliot is set on making a match with Anne.

When asked about choosing Golding for the role of Mr. Elliot, Cracknell first brought up Jarvis and why it made sense for her to pick him as the romantic lead: "I felt that Cosmo encapsulated Wentworth really beautifully, because Wentworth is a very kind of deep and complicated, but also not an upper-class, character.

"He's a self-made man who has come from a diverse background, he kind of built his own life and that was something that I felt Cosmo really connected [and could] access too.

"Cosmo I think as a person and an actor has really deep roots and feels sort of outside the milieu of the characters in the story, and that felt really important to me to honour that."

"Whereas, Henry Golding has this kind of very different, very fizzy, immediate charm and humour, which to me felt much more accurate for Elliot," Cracknell went on. "The idea that you never quite know who he is, you never quite know what he's planning.

"And Henry was really excited to sort of contact that and to play around in this, you know, traditional upper-class world which he could totally kind of access, but to find a fresh spin on Elliot.

"So, I was led very much by the sort of temperament and attitude of the two actors when it came to casting them."

The director continued: "I think the risk, for us, that was interesting was that she might end up with [Mr. Elliot], you know, and then you kind of realize that it's not all that it seems."

The Chemistry of Dakota Johnson and Cosmo Jarvis

Cracknell is full of praise for Johnson, sharing how the actor has "incredible wit and intelligence" that meant she was the perfect Anne Elliot in her mind.

"She's so thoughtful, and she has a kind of boldness and a modernness as well as an actor and I think, you know, she sort of really honors that but she brings very much her own sort of atmosphere and attitude to the character, which I really love actually and I think is one of the reasons why it feels very alive," the director said.

Johnson's chemistry with Jarvis also impressed Cracknell the most, and the director could see how much time and effort they put into embodying Austen's characters and respecting that relationship the author had created.

"They both really enjoyed trying to kind of capture the essence of that connection," Cracknell explained. "I think one of the things about this relationship is that it's a really old relationship, and in a way is very, very deep, but it's also kind of full of pride and full of fear because things broke down.

"And in a way, the story is about a kind of very, very slow journey back to the point where you can trust yourself and the other person enough to revisit it. And so I felt it was important that we had a kind of gunpowder trail in a way back towards that moment, it's not all there for them immediately at the beginning because there's anger and sadness, and regret and melancholy, absolutely embedded in the space between them.

"And I guess I see that the story in the film was a sort of journey through that, to put that together.

"I really enjoyed kind of trying to calibrate that energy with both of them, and they're very different actors but I think they've really found a kind of lovely way of doing that."

Ricard E. Grant Owns Several Portraits of Himself Now

One amusing part of the story that viewers might notice is the sheer amount of portraits that hang up in the Elliot family homes.

The portraits are not of the whole family, but of Sir Walter Elliot, Anne's narcissistic father, portrayed by Richard E. Grant.

Cracknell raved over the Withnail & I actor, saying that everyone on set "fell in love" with him, adding: "He's just the most generous, gregarious person, he's all the things you would hope he might be as a national treasure."

Reflecting on the many portraits Grant had done for the film, the director shared that he kept a number of them after filming had wrapped.

"He loved getting portraits done, he really enjoyed posing for them," she said. "I think he has got some of them in his house. I'm not completely sure how many, but I think we had five paintings done."

Giving Jane Austen a "Bolder, Fresher" Take

Cracknell had always intended a move into film directing, citing it as a "long-held ambition" to do so, and she made the leap after feeling that working in the theater no longer scared her.

"I've always sort of thrived on being frightened, and I'd stopped being frightened [in theater], that's the truth. And it was kind of great to feel the absolute heart-wrenching, kind of, pumping adrenaline of being part of this machine. To sort of revisit that momentum, I guess."

One thing that Cracknell's adaptation of Persuasion does for Netflix is give it a modern twist, taking the period drama and perhaps making it "bolder" and "fresher." She was keen to try and breathe new life into Persuasion and introduce Austen's classic tale to another generation.

Netflix is no stranger to modernizing period dramas, as Bridgerton does just that, and it's one of the streaming platform's most successful shows.

"I mean, I've always been a big Austen fan and I grew up reading the books and watching the adaptations, a lot of them were made in my teens," Cracknell told Newsweek.

"As soon as I read this, I found that there was a kind of freshness and an immediacy which felt psychologically interesting, but also really funny.

"And it had the kind of melancholy and the sort of heartbreak of the novel, which I had always loved but had this slightly bolder, kind of fresher energy.

"I felt excited about making an Austen [adaptation] which might reach a slightly different audience and might be a kind of way in, I guess, for new audience to sort of meet the material and, hopefully, fall in love with the story."

Persuasion will premiere on Netflix on Friday, July 15.