\n<\/p>\n
Being cast in the mini-series \u201cMiss Austen\u201d<\/a> began Keeley Hawes\u2019s first venture into the Jane Austen-verse. Hawes has a r\u00e9sum\u00e9 thick with period pieces but, perhaps surprisingly, she had never done a screen adaptation of Austen\u2019s work \u2014 a veritable cottage industry in Britain since the late 1930s.<\/p>\n \u201cOf course, my husband played Mr. Darcy, so I feel like we\u2019ve been in that world,\u201d Hawes said, referring to the \u201cSuccession\u201d star Matthew Macfadyen, who appeared in the 2005 film version of the classic Regency-era novel \u201cPride and Prejudice.\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n \u201cI was delighted to join in the Austen world, and especially to do it like this because it\u2019s not one that has been done,\u201d she continued. \u201cBut it feels like part of the canon.\u201d<\/p>\n Indeed, Hawes is sneaking in through a side door: In the four-part \u201cMiss Austen,\u201d<\/a> which premieres on Sunday as part of the PBS series \u201cMasterpiece<\/a>,\u201d she plays a fictionalized version of Cassandra, Jane\u2019s older sister and a somewhat controversial figure because she burned most of the writer\u2019s letters.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n Like the historical novel by Gill Hornby on which it is based, the show, adapted by Andrea Gibb, speculates on what led Cassandra to her fateful act and features some very Austen-like romantic subplots. A key development cleverly brings together a friend of Cassandra\u2019s played by Rose Leslie and Jane\u2019s posthumous novel \u201cPersuasion.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n Though less known to mainstream viewers in the United States, Hawes, 49, has long been a familiar presence in British living rooms, with roles dating to the late 1980s. Her greatest hits are almost exclusively from television \u2014 in 2021, she was anointed \u201cthe queen of British telly\u201d<\/a> by The London Standard \u2014 starting in an era when, as she put it, \u201cpeople could be quite snobby about TV.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cYes, I bided my time,\u201d she added dryly during a recent visit to New York. \u201cNow we live in a world where Meryl Streep does TV shows and Robert De Niro is on posters for a TV show.\u201d<\/p>\n Given her immense range and versatility, and her near constant churn, Hawes is, in many respects, still a character actor at heart, a proper trouper with a decided lack of pretension or preciousness about the work. And yet over the past decade, she has emerged as an in-demand star with the requisite presence to carry a series. Her role as Cassandra is the latest example: a part that is both unshowy and commanding.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n \u201cShe\u2019s been a very, very important part of a lot of great ensembles,\u201d Christine Langan, an executive producer of \u201cMiss Austen,\u201d said in a recent video call. \u201cBut she also has total lead-actress capacity. Her face as Miss Austen has become so symbolic of the show.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n Hawes spent 10 years at the Sylvia Young Theater School in London, where she enrolled at age 9. (Classmates included the future Spice Girl Emma Bunton, better known as Baby Spice.) Her screen appearances quickly began piling up. For someone who would become a defining face of British television, it made sense that she would turn up in music videos for era-defining bands of the Britpop music craze, including Pulp<\/a>, Suede<\/a> and James<\/a>.<\/p>\n Her breakthrough came in the early 2000s, with the three-episode historical drama \u201cTipping the Velvet\u201d and the espionage series \u201cSpooks\u201d (retitled \u201cMI-5\u201d in the United States), on whose set she met Macfadyen. Major roles since then include a prickly detective<\/a> in the procedural \u201cLine of Duty,\u201d a warmly charismatic 1930s matriarch<\/a> in \u201cThe Durrells in Corfu,\u201d<\/a> and a calculating, ambitious home secretary in the sexy Netflix thriller \u201cBodyguard.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cI have been watching and admiring Keeley for so many years now,\u201d Leslie said in an email. \u201cI first saw her onscreen in \u2018Spooks\u2019 and she had always struck me as an incredibly versatile and brilliant actor,\u201d adding that when she decided to sign up for \u201cMiss Austen,\u201d \u201cthe opportunity to work opposite her was a ginormous pull.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n If there is one constant in Hawes\u2019s career, it\u2019s that she works constantly. When asked what she had wrapped before starting \u201cMiss Austen,\u201d Hawes froze.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n \u201cOh, my God,\u201d she said. A pause. \u201cActually, I can\u2019t remember. I did then go on to do \u2018The Assassin\u2019 for Amazon,\u201d she continued, referring to a thriller due later this year in which she portrays a retired killer with a son played by Freddie Highmore.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s a glossy assassin, is what I would say,\u201d she added with a laugh. \u201cI\u2019m shooting people because I have to for my own survival, not because I\u2019m enjoying it.\u201d<\/p>\n Her newly announced next project is yet another hairpin turn: Hawes will star as a nun in love with a priest played by Paapa Essiedu in a coming Channel 4 drama from Jack Thorne (\u201cAdolescence\u201d).<\/p>\n Hawes seems to relish the whiplash \u2014 maybe because she is not, as she said, \u201ca Method actor \u2014 I\u2019m able to remove myself completely.\u201d The continuous pivoting between vastly different roles also makes it hard for her to be pigeonholed.<\/p>\n \u201cWhat you get with Keeley is someone who\u2019s really all about the character and all about serving the character and isn\u2019t going to get hung up on things that maybe other actors would be insecure about,\u201d Jed Mercurio, the creator of \u201cLine of Duty\u201d and \u201cBodyguard,\u201d said in a video interview. \u201cShe doesn\u2019t have that insecurity because she knows she can execute.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n Mercurio alludes to a certain quality of effectiveness and capability, which is also found in Cassandra Austen, a character whose mother describes her as having \u201ca surfeit of competence.\u201d Hawes was quick to laugh off the suggestion that this reflected her own personality. \u201cI really think it\u2019s something people see in me,\u201d she said, \u201cbecause I never think I know what I\u2019m doing.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n