Jamaica Inn: interview with Jessica Brown Findlay

How did you come to be involved in Jamaica Inn?

My agent sent me the script. I read episode one, and then called my agent and begged to audition. I went in and auditioned, and met Phillippa Lowthorpe [director] for the first time. I’d seen Five Daughters on TV and after that tried to find as much of her work to watch as I could.

After I did that audition I was just desperate to hear back. I kind of wanted to go back in and have another go – just to be like ‘please don’t make too quick a decision! I can do it better I promise!’ Then I heard I had the part. I’ve never been more excited. It’s the most excited I’ve ever been to get a job, because I don’t think I’ve ever wanted a job more.

Did you read the novel before you found out you got the role?

I started to but then I had to put it down! Because I thought if I don’t get it then I know I can go and read it, I can’t let my imagination run away with me. And then when I did, I just immediately carried on reading. Du Maurier’s writing is so exciting.

Do you think because Mary comes across as a modern woman? Is this something that will resonate with viewers?

Yes, 100%. Mary’s nothing like you would expect to find in this kind of story. I think firstly you wouldn’t expect her to be driving it. You’d expect her to be part of it, but I think because you’re seeing and exploring these other characters through Mary’s gaze, through her perception and her understanding of them, and judgement of them, that is really exciting and very interesting.

Jem has a moment of being just really rude – and instead of being demure or taking that, and just rising above it – Mary slaps him around the face and says if he was any kind of gentleman he would know that just because it’s there, it’s not on offer! I loved that phrase and it’s very relevant to discussions today.

Also her attitude of wanting to be understood as a person as opposed to via her gender. For most of the story, episodes two and three, she’s dressed as a man as well, and that was really liberating to do because it’s easier to run in trousers than it is in a skirt! But also with all that, she feels as if she’s not being judged for her gender as much.

How would you describe Mary?

Mary is stubborn to a fault, fearless but yet equally fearful. She fears maybe things that others wouldn’t. She’s very, very afraid of things that are sexual, of desire – she doesn’t want any of that. She’s afraid of her own heart, her own feelings, but then she’ll delve into doing things that other characters would perhaps never do.

If there’s danger she almost runs towards it, as oppose to away, which is exciting but also foolish. She’s incredibly flawed, but she has a core and a moral compass that points north – is exactly there – but around these characters, especially Jem. He acts as almost as a magnet to her compass, and when she is near him, it just starts spinning, and she doesn’t know which way is up.

She loses her sense of who she is, and she’s overcome with desire and love for him, but she also despises that. She’s very challenged by what she wants to be, and what she is. I think she has an idea of who she wants to be, and she’s not there yet, and what happens in the story influences very much who she ends up being.

What is her relationship like with Joss?

Mary and Joss. It’s a very complex relationship. There’s an instant dislike or gut feeling that Mary has about Joss. This is someone to be careful with – a feeling of  'I’m going to have to play this right' - but equally she realises very quickly that she needs to be equal to him, and for him not to think her stupid, or a pushover.

Mary needs to stand her ground and make sure he knows that she’s not to be challenged or cast aside. There’s kind of a fatherly love, and then it can bring out some quite childlike qualities within both of them.

I think Mary acts to Joss as a mirror, and reveals to him how far he’s come from who he was, and who he is now. The fact that Mary is threatened by him so much, but she will not succumb to the dark side. I think he hates that, because he has, and therefore he’s exposed more because of that fact, but equally he admires her for that. That she doesn’t just change because she’s forced to change all her morals.

What is Mary’s relationship like with her Aunt Patience? How does she see her?

Mary goes there, and the woman she met before – this young, youthful, full of life, very optimistic young woman – is now completely changed, and I think Mary is very afraid that if she stayed there, and accepted that lifestyle, that she would become her Aunt Patience, and she can’t understand how you can call something love when it is abusive, controlling and suppressive. That is something that she really struggles with.

Mary doesn’t understand, and rightly so, and I think she becomes very protective of her Aunt, but also frustrated. She wants to take her away and protect her, but her Aunt won’t have it. If push comes to shove, and Mary said ‘we’re off now, and I promise everything will be OK if you come with me’, her Aunt would never leave. That’s a really frustrating situation to be in, and I think she wants to trust her Aunt, but there are certain things that she just won’t divulge to her, and therefore she has to find out herself, and that becomes very dangerous.

How would you describe her relationship with Jem?

I think it’s a great relationship. Because of what he does, she’s like ‘Oh I know who you are. I know you’re a horse thief, and I don’t like people who do that’ and then she discovers that Jem and Joss are related, they’re brothers, and that seals the deal in terms of who she thinks he is.

Some of it she’s got right, but most of it she’s got wrong, and Jem is Joss before, but he’s got a different heart to him. He wouldn’t be pushed around. He is perhaps stronger, but Mary doesn’t see that. As it goes, she finds a real ease with Jem and allows herself in moments to forget everything and just enjoy his company, and allow herself to fall in love.

But then, she really despises those facts, and then instantly can’t bear that she’s done that, and she’s frustrated! I think at one point she says ‘I don’t want him. I wish I could throw away feelings for him, but I can’t, and I hate that I can’t, because I don’t know myself around him.’ Mary’s compass for who she knows, or who she thinks she knows she is, is completely messed up when she’s around Jem. She can’t think straight, she can’t make decisions in a way that she thought she could in the past.

Her future will be changed completely, whether or not she decides to go with or go against those emotions, but I think she also over-complicates things and she’s also really bad at flirting! When she’s stomping away and he’s just saved her life out of a bog, and she’s not even said thank you! He’s given her his coat – very gentlemanly thing to do – and she’s just stomped off and insulted him.

Then he asks her to meet him on Christmas Day, and she’s like ‘Yeah well I won’t be there!’ Mary, you like him, just say all right! Just accept the date! I really liked that, that there was that kind of awkwardness, and almost playful flirting in the sense of being like ‘I’m not even going to look at you.’ It’s quite a teenage response. She’s one step away from slamming her door. I love that. I think it’s really great - it felt honest.

How did you find braving the elements while filming?

It was challenging, you can’t say it was easy, because our whole crew was out in the open. Camera equipment and hills that are incredibly boggy, and filming in the sea with a boom for sound – it’s nuts but it’s kind of exhilarating in that sense because you feel like you’re working, you’re really actually working, rather than being paid to just dress up.

I loved that and it felt as if I was able to indulge and be in Mary’s world more. It wasn’t pretend and it wasn’t just in a warm studio.

You’re there and out in the open, and the sense of the landscape is such a character in the book, and such a character in the script and the way it’s manifested itself visually. To really have that sense that you are in the middle of nowhere, and there’s a reason why Mary doesn’t run for it – well she does a lot, and eventually she gives up and goes back, because she knows there’s nowhere to go. I get the sense that they really are at the ends of the earth.

Was it important for you that you filmed in Cornwall?

It was so important. I’m so happy that we got to do that. We were there for two weeks, and it meant that wherever we went afterwards – North Yorkshire and into the studio in the last two weeks – we’d been to Cornwall, we’d all been there and done that, and so it meant for the rest of the time we were there we could remember it, and it was sort of in our bones.