Pride and Prejudice star Matthew Macfadyen on his love for Keeley Hawes and role as pin-up Darcy.
Pride and Prejudice star Matthew Macfadyen has revealed his anguish at falling for his actress wife — eight weeks after she married her first husband.
The 30-year-old actor, who plays heart-throb Mr Darcy in the new film adaptation of the Jane Austen novel, fell in love with Keeley Hawes on the set of BBC series Spooks.
Keeley, 28, who also starred in lesbian romp Tipping the Velvet, was married to cartoonist Spencer McCallum and had a baby son.
With Hollywood stardom in his sights, Matthew spoke for the first time about how his love for Keeley changed his life.
He said: “It was an awful situation because I realised I’d fallen for her. When you’re confronted with something like that, what can you do? We weren’t having an affair and it was a slow process. But I knew the effect she had on me.”
“She’s gorgeous. Everyone who meets her will tell you the same thing.”
With its surly hero and spirited heroine, Pride and Prejudice is the ultimate romantic comedy.
Although Colin Firth is the best-known Mr Darcy, from the 1995 BBC version of Pride and Prejudice, this is the first film since 1940.
Then, Mr Darcy was played by Lawrence Olivier so Matthew will have a lot to live up to. But his co-star, Keira Knightley, who plays love interest Elizabeth Bennet, is complimentary. She said: “He’s the real thing. He’s all manly man. I love him because he’s a big guy which is quite rare on screen today.”
“Filmmakers tend to go for that slightly more androgynous look these days, which is lovely — but one of the most romantic things in the world is a manly man, particularly when, like Matthew, he’s intensely vulnerable as well.”
“Matthew plays Darcy in a way I’ve never seen before, with huge vulnerability.”
Matthew, who played MI5 agent Tom Quinn in Spooks fell for Keeley, who shot to fame as agent Zoe Reynolds, in 2002, just weeks after she wed Spencer, when her son Myles was less than two years old.
Macfadyen and Hawes were spotted kissing in June that year but insist that Keeley had already separated from Spencer and nothing had happened between them until her marriage ended. Keeley herself says of the relationship, “I’m sure nobody would believe we never had an affair but we really didn’t.”
The couple quit the TV drama last year and married in October, just a month before Keeley gave birth to their daughter, Maggie, nine months.
Matthew said: “In a matter of a few weeks last year, our lives changed completely. We eloped to Richmond-on-Thames register office on October 8.”
“We rang a mate each to come along as witnesses and people brought little throwaway cameras to take pictures. I read a poem and Keeley cried her eyes out. It was wonderful and romantic.”
“Keeley was heavily pregnant with our daughter and the whole thing seemed perfect to me.”
Matthew wasn’t an automatic choice for the role in Pride and Prejudice because he is relatively unknown to US audiences.
Like Keira, who was originally deemed too pretty to be Elizabeth Bennet, Matthew had to convince director Joe Wright he was suitable. As the film is set in 1797, the year Jane Austen wrote the novel, rather than in 1813, when it was published, Working Title have made it a realist production.
Matthew said: “I know that everyone loved Colin’s portrayal and that kind of comparison is going to be hard to live with.”
“It’s such a well-loved story that people rightly feel critical of anyone playing the main characters.
“Watching it was strange because you can’t help but look critically at your own performance but there’s a youth and vitality about the film.
By Julia Hunt for The Mail on Sunday.
(Source: HighBeam)