Felicity on The Archers + Cheri

Felicity recently spoke with Baz Bamigboye of The Daily Mail. Here's the relevant bit:

Felicity Jones has had quite a time travelling the world to make movies with Michelle Pfeiffer and Helen Mirren. But she always returns to Ambridge. 'I've been doing it now for ten years - it would be weird not to,' said Felicity (above) who plays love-cheat Emma Grundy in the broadcasting institution The Archers.

Away from fictional village life, the 25-year-old has become one of the most versatile of our rising stars.

Last year, she held her own opposite Penelope Wilton and Margaret Tyzack in Michael Grandage's acclaimed Donmar production of The Chalk Garden. Next month sees the Oxford graduate sharing the big screen with Ms Pfeiffer, Kathy Bates and Rupert Friend (above with Felicity) in Stephen Frears's sumptuously costumed and photographed movie Cheri, based on the novel by Colette. Mr Friend plays Cheri, the pampered son of a courtesan who is tutored in the art of high-living and much else by Pfeiffer, a refined artisan.

But Cheri is pushed into an arranged marriage with Edmee, a virginal heiress, played by Felicity with a quietly determined edge.

Actually, it's the relationship between Edmee and Cheri that, for me, gave the movie some spark. 'Edmee's so young, and her mother has used her as a commodity - to marry her off when she becomes useful.

She seems quite a victim but she has her own way of asserting herself,' Felicity noted, adding: 'She loves Cheri but is petrified at the same time.' In the movie, Friend wears more make-up than Felicity.

'He's beautiful. I love the vanity of his character, it's as though he's been petted and treated like a little boy.'

After shooting Cheri, Felicity hurled herself into Julie Taymor's idiosyncratic film version of The Tempest, with Helen Mirren playing Prospera, Felicity as Miranda and Ben Whishaw as Ariel. It was a project that called for rehearsals in London, studio work in Brooklyn and location filming in Hawaii Then it was back to Ambridge.

'Ed and Emma are supposed to be in domestic bliss at the moment, and in radio terms happiness in love probably isn't the best thing,' she observed, before adding slyly: 'I have just been recording some episodes to be broadcast later this month.' Hit that dial!

("Ambridge was never like this!," April 9, 2009.)