Howards End star Matthew Macfadyen: ‘It’s about sex, money and power!’

Whats On TV
Caren Clark
12:15am - Tue, November 7

Here, Hayley and Matthew tell TV Times about starring in the lavish new version of Howards End…

TV Times: How would you describe your characters?

Hayley Atwell: “Margaret has a wonderful warmth and is an eccentric character. She’s an independent thinker but she’s disillusioned. She feels she can talk about social affairs but not do anything about them, so she is searching for her place in the world.”
Matthew Macfadyen: “Henry’s one of those manly men of that time who isn’t prone to bouts of introspection or navel-gazing or talking about feelings. He’s very confident and pig-headed.”

What’s their relationship like?

MF: “Henry doesn’t have the tools that Margaret has to deal with the complex situations that arise; he gets frightened. They’re probably not a natural match, but she’s attracted by his self-possession and it’s a slow burn.”
HA: “Yes, they have a different set of values and it begins as something that isn’t rational and she doesn’t understand it herself. She has self-awareness and he is emotionally constipated but she ultimately finds that endearing because his intentions are good.”

How important is class to the drama?

MM: “Hugely and it’s just wonderful. It’s about sex, money, power, and how people operate in society and that doesn’t go out of fashion does it? It’s fantastic because you see everyone’s point of view.”
HA: “It brings up really interesting questions because you have capitalists with a drive for power and people at the lower end who are teetering on the abyss but know their place better than the Schlegels who are the wandering middle class. The novel talks about how we should “only connect” and that becomes Margaret’s message. She wants to connect everyone together so that things become classless.”



Read more at http://www.whatsontv.co.uk/news/howards-ends-matthew-macfadyen-sex-money-power-502577/#6izxYkGeE1Ke8qDt.99

Matthew Macfadyen: When love and class collide: Sumptuous Sunday night TV returns with a new four-part adaptation of Howards End, EM Forster’s tale of romance across the social divide

Daily Mail
Nicole Lampert For Weekend Magazine
PUBLISHED: 18:31 EDT, 3 November 2017 | UPDATED: 18:31 EDT, 3 November 2017

The setting is as splendid as you’d expect for the BBC’s latest costume drama.

Just outside the stunning stately home in the grounds of the picturesque, 5,000-acre West Wycombe Estate in the Chiltern Hills, there’s a marquee overlooking the lake.

Inside, it’s beautifully decorated with intricate winding flowers flowing from ornate Edwardian vases, and the table is laden with vintage crystal champagne glasses, along with decorative platters of fruit and cakes baked to the recipes of Victorian cook Mrs Beeton.

The table, and indeed the stage, is set for one of the most pivotal and dramatic scenes in the new adaptation of EM Forster’s novel Howards End – the wedding of rich businessman’s daughter Evie Wilcox to Percy Cahill at her family’s country estate, Oniton.

By the end of the reception, however, the three very different families the story centres on will have collided to disastrous effect.

And as the millions who’ve read Forster’s book or wallowed in the glorious 1992 Merchant Ivory film will know, what follows is destitution, tragedy, manslaughter and incarceration.

Despite Forster’s book being 107 years old, the themes still feel uncannily modern. The story revolves around three families in England at the beginning of the 20th century – the Wilcoxes, rich capitalists with a fortune made in the colonies, the half-German Schlegel siblings Margaret, Helen and younger brother Tibby, bohemian intellectuals who have much in common with the real-life Bloomsbury Group, and the Basts, an impoverished young couple from a lower-class background. Howards End, Mrs Wilcox’s beloved ancestral home – albeit a pile far less grand than Oniton – is almost a character in its own right too, becoming integral to the complex relationships between these three very different strata of society.

And this new four-part adaptation shows just how timeless, and at times brutal, the tale is.

‘Our series has been written to be deliberately not too earnest. In some ways it doesn’t feel like a period drama at all,’ says Hayley Atwell, who plays the central character of Margaret Schlegel in the drama, which has been adapted by American Kenneth Lonergan who won a BAFTA earlier this year for his film Manchester By The Sea.

‘We were all told not to watch the Merchant Ivory film because this was going to be very different. Despite the constrictions of the costumes and the period, we did feel we wanted to make it accessible to modern audiences by not making it feel mannered.’

Even Emma Thompson, who played Margaret in the 1992 film, told Hayley (who played Emma’s character’s daughter in the 2008 film version of Brideshead Revisited) not to refer to the Merchant Ivory version. ‘She said, “Don’t watch the film. She is you and you are she and she is you.”’

That’s not to say this lavish drama skimps on the things period fans love. There are plenty of corsets and bonnets, beautiful houses, high teas and even a former Mr Darcy in Matthew Macfadyen playing the businessman Henry Wilcox.


Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-5046257/A-new-four-adaptation-Howards-End-comes-BBC.html#ixzz4xVThMRGX 
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Matthew Macfadyen: BBC One Sets Premiere Date For ‘Howards End’

The TVWise Team | October 31, 2017 - 5:16 pm |

BBC One’s four-part drama Howards End will premiere on Sunday November 12th at 9pm, it has been announced.

Based on the E.M. Forster novel of the same name, Howards End explores the changing landscape of social and class divisions in turn of the century England through the prism of three families: the intellectual and idealistic Schlegels, the wealthy Wilcoxes from the world of business, and the working class Basts. The four-parter is produced by Playground in association with City Entertainment and KippSter Entertainment and stars Hayley Atwell, Matthew Macfadyen, Julia Ormond, Philippa Coulthard, Joseph Quinn, Rosalind Eleazar, Tracey Ullman and Alex Lawther.

http://www.tvwise.co.uk/2017/10/bbc-one-sets-premiere-date-howards-end/

First look at Hayley Atwell and Matthew Macfadyen in Howards End

COMING SOON.NET
May 4, 2017

Starz, with the BBC, today released the first image from the limited series Howards End, based on the classic E.M. Forster novel. The above photo features Hayley Atwell (Margaret Schlegel) and Matthew Macfadyen (Henry Wilcox) at Simpson’s-in-the-Strand restaurant.

Howards End is the first television adaptation from the Academy Award-nominated screenwriter and playwright Kenneth Lonergan (Manchester by the Sea, Gangs of New York, You Can Count on Me).This four-part limited series is the story of two independent and unconventional sisters and the men in their lives seeking love and meaning as they navigate an ever-changing world. Academy Award-winning screenwriter Kenneth Lonergan brings a fresh take to this adaptation directed by BAFTA winner Hettie Macdonald (White Girl).





Read more at http://www.comingsoon.net/tv/news/844745-first-look-at-hayley-atwell-and-matthew-macfadyen-in-howards-end#RBwcRJXyCxP2LJ16.99

Judi Dench, Maggie Smith, Helena Bonham Carter, Daniel Day Lewis - A ROOM WITH A VIEW (entire) 1985