BBC Article: Justine on Wives and Daughters, 1999

For TV beauty Justine Waddell, Dickens super-bitch Estella was made to measure —a heartbreaker dressed to kill. She explains: “I was in clothes heaven. When you’re four, you draw clothes like that—it’s a childhood dream. As a girl watching Gone with the Wind, you long to grow up as an actress playing Estella. I hate shopping because nothing ever fits. But as Estella, it was a permanent kick to waltz into wardrobe. She’s the only character I’ll ever play who takes two and a half hours in make-up. With Estella, you can be as vain as you like.”

And Justine’s man-eating role was fun. She explains: “The script was dark and funny and brutal and unsentimental. The characters come immediately alive. You read the script and say, ‘I know someone like that’.”

Justine believes that Great Expectations is dripping with modern angst. The actress explains: “Dickens is pre-Freud and is writing without modern psychological awareness, but that makes it all the more powerful. The images resonate without being filled with pop-psychology baggage.”

Justine's first TV credit was The Woman in White, followed by the lead in Tess of the D'Urbervilles and recently appeared in the Miramax movie Mansfield Park. Justine took a year and a half out of Cambridge University to act, but went back last summer to complete her degree.

Exxon Mobil Masterpiece Theatre
Molly Gibson
Justine Waddell

Raised alone by her father, Molly Gibson finds her quiet life thrown into disarray when he decides to remarry. At 17, Molly gains a meddling stepmother, Hyacinth 'Clare' Kirkpatrick, and a beautiful stepsister, Cynthia. While Molly and the new Mrs. Gibson remain at odds, she and Cynthia become fast friends despite their different temperaments. Molly begins to fall for Roger Hamley as his affection for Cynthia grows.

In approaching the role of Molly, actress Justine Waddell had to learn to suppress many of her modern instincts. "Today's teenagers are a lot more streetwise and independent. I had to forget about the knowingness of modern day young women and play Molly with a sense of purity."

Above all, Waddell warmed to the down-to-earth nature of the character. "What's appealing is that Molly's so ordinary. She's completely straightforward and unpretentious. That chimes with the whole piece. Wives and Daughters is a very ordinary story. There's nothing heroic about it. It's like a contemporary drama about an everyday small community filled with everyday characters."

Waddell has made a name for herself in period dramas -- on television in ExxonMobil Masterpiece Theatre's Great Expectations and The Woman in White, and on the big screen in Mansfield Park.


BBC Publicity - March 1999

Bill Paterson, Michael Gambon, Francecsa Annis, Keeley Hawes, Justine Waddell and Iain Glen star in Wives and Daughters a major new drama serial for BBC ONE.

From the team responsible for Pride And Prejudice comes a television adaptation of
Wives and Daughters, Elizabeth Gaskell's humerous and endearing novel, adapted by
Andrew Davies and produced by Sue Birtwistle.

"Wives and Daughters brings together an extraordinary line-up of some of Britain's
best acting talent combining both established names and stars of the future," said Jane Tranter, Senior Executive Producer, BBC ONE Serials.

The cast includes Bill Paterson (The Crow Road), Michael Gambon (The Singing
Detective), Francesca Annis (Reckless), Keeley Hawes (Our Mutual Friend), Justine
Waddell (Great Expectations) and Iain Glen (The Blue Room). This new adaptation is
directed by Nicholas Renton.

Other cast members include: Barbara Flynn, Ian Carmichael, Elizabeth Spriggs,
Penelope Wilton, Barbara Leigh Hunt and Michael Bryant.

"I think the reason this wonderful book is so little known is that Gaskell died just
before completing it," says producer Sue Birtwistle. "It's very clear what she wanted to happen, but not how it was to come about, so we've had great fun plotting the ending that we hoped she herself might have written".

Set amid the broad range of middle-English society on the eve of the Industrial Revolution, Wives and Daughters tells the story of Molly Gibson (Justine Waddell).
Brought up from childhood by her father (Bill Paterson), at seventeen she acquires a
stepmother (Francesca Annis) and a beautiful step-sister, Cynthia (Keeley Hawes).

The loveable, but worldly, Cynthia brings Molly both joys and woes. Men, of course,
are the problem in the form of Squire Hamley's sons Osbourne (Tom Hollander) and
Roger (Anthony Howell) and the mysterious Mr Preston (Iain Glen). The intrigue of
thei lives develops under the watchful eye and wagging tongues of village society.

"Wives and Daughters is about the ordinary mysteries of life: where does love come
from, how does it grow, how it can twist and sour and corrupt us, how it can break our hearts, how it can bring us happiness and fulfilment. And more than almost any book I know, Wives and Daughters, this neglected masterpiece, tells us what it feels like to be alive," said Andrew Davies.

Wives and Daughters is produced by Sue Birtwistle (Pride And Prejudice, King Lear) and directed by Nicholas Renton (Far From The Madding Crowd, Hamish Macbeth). The executive producers are Jane Tranter for BBC Television and Rebecca Eaton from WGBH.

Filming takes place in the Lake District, Yorkshire, Wiltshire and Elstree Film Studios from March until July 1999.

A BBC Production in association with WGBH/Boston, developed with CHESTERMEAD Ltd.



Issued; March 1999