‘I Hope the Joy Comes Across’: On Set (and on the Water) With the Cast of ‘The Other Bennet Sister’

“Marie is an atypical costume heroine. Women like this are at the forefront of TV dramas these days, but are rarely seen in costume dramas,” Brucolelli later says in the trailer as she ducks into the heat. (She would know: Her previous credits include call the midwife and bridgeton.) “These women were all feminine, ladylike, proper, or a little shy—Mary was neither. She had no filter. She was proud, smart, and dowdy. She didn’t know how to be anyone else.”

“Sometimes you read a period drama and it feels a little stiff – that comes from the repressed feeling of the time,” Brucolelli continues. “We felt so close, so open. I’m not playing a character in a period drama – I’m playing a person who happened to live in 1814.”

While the first part of filming was all about dinner and ballroom scenes, much of the second part takes place here, with the Welsh countryside representing Windermere and Scafell Pike in Cumbria. On the day of my visit, Brucolelli, Davidson and Finn filmed a scene that is familiar to everyone Pop Fans: As the two suitors vie for her attention (and laugh at each other), they drag Mary’s boat through the water and stagger to shore, white shirts clinging to their torsos like Colin Firth’s Mr. Darcy.

“My favorite scene involves…the main challenge of utter exhaustion,” Davidson said. For the sake of “visual integrity,” he refused to wear neoprene underwear to keep warm in the water—“a huge mistake,” he later admitted.

There was a sense of camaraderie on set. Varma, dressed in finery, sunbathed while relaxing by the lake, shouting encouragement to Finn and Davidson. Finn and Bruccoleri share AirPods and playlists (Mitski, Big Thief) to ensure they enter the scene with the same mindset. (After filming ended, Brucolelli presented Finn with a vinyl copy of “The Thief” and a framed lyric from their song “Mary.”) The show’s writer, Quintrell, said the cast booed the first time Caroline Bentley (Tanya Reynolds) treated Mary badly.

“I want everyone to have fun. If this is half of what we went through during the production, that’s more than enough,” Quintrell said. “This book is about what it’s like to be the odd one out, and the transformative power of kindness.”