\n<\/p>\n
Esm\u00e9 Creed-Miles is pacing in a corner of The London West Hollywood hotel lobby, on the phone, holding a banana. Even mid-call and mid-snack, she looks effortlessly sleek: a T-shirt from Anti Public Library (a hip Paris bar-slash-bookshop), jeans, a smattering of jewelry, and a fresh glow on her clean face. When she hangs up, she joins me in the restaurant and orders a flat white with almond milk. \u201cI\u2019m really jet-lagged. For some reason, I couldn\u2019t sleep last night,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n
It could be because the British actor has just flown into town for a couple of days to begin her press tour for a new Sense and Sensibility<\/em> movie. In the 2026 adaptation, she plays Marianne Dashwood, the passionate, impulsive sister who contrasts with her more prudent older sister Elinor (Daisy Edgar-Jones<\/a>) in the Jane Austen<\/a> classic. By her own account, it\u2019s the biggest thing she has done. \u201cI so wanted it to be the best thing I\u2019d ever done,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n But she nearly lost the part from the start. The first audition, she tells me, was a disaster. \u201cI\u2019m quite a nervous person and actually usually quite shy,\u201d she says. \u201cI find it quite hard to be vulnerable and comfortable in a room full of people I don\u2019t know.\u201d She texted her agent immediately after to say there was no way she\u2019d be getting the role. But surprisingly, the casting director allowed her to give it another shot. \u201cShe was like, \u2018Yeah, it was kind of awful. She couldn\u2019t remember her lines, but there was a vibe,\u2019\u201d says Creed-Miles now.<\/p>\n After a second audition and a chemistry read with Edgar-Jones, the role was hers. She just had to figure out how to transform into Marianne, a role made iconic by Kate Winslet\u2019s Oscar-nominated performance in Ang Lee\u2019s 1995 adaptation<\/a>. It could have been a large shadow looming over Creed-Miles, but she\u2019s got a knack for pushing back against that kind of pressure. For one, she still hasn\u2019t seen the 1995 film. \u201cI decided to not watch it because I knew I have a real tendency to compare and despair,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n