Julian Jarrold’s adaptation  — or reimagination — of Evelyn Waugh’s Brideshead Revisited is not likely to be embraced by purists (see review), but it does feature excellent lead performances by some of the best young British actors around. On a recent visit to Toronto, lead performers Hayley Atwell (Julia Flyte) and Matthew Goode (Charles Ryder) discussed the film with EYE WEEKLY.

Were you intimidated by this role considering how many people love the 1981 BBC miniseries?
Atwell: I made a conscious choice not to watch it. I thought that this was a film adaptation of a book rather than a remake of a series. And if it has any integrity at all it would have to stand alone — as would my performance.

This script takes some liberties with the novel — were you conscious of any impending controversy while you were making the film?
Atwell: It’s not my job as an actor to please an audience that has come to the film with a preconception of what Brideshead should be. I was a given a fantastic script and an interesting character, and so I do what I’m paid to do. But it is interesting to step back and look objectively at what fans of the novel or the miniseries would see as liberties that were taken — at things that they might be confused by, intrigued by or even quite refreshed by.

One major change that some people might object to is seeing Julia go along to Venice with Charles and Sebastian…
Atwell: That was something that the Waugh estate has agreed on, and they have been incredibly strict. Waugh didn’t like a script of Brideshead that was written back in the 1950s, and I know a lot of people have tried to make this movie. Having read the book, I can see why someone would ask, ‘Well, why is Julia [in the Venice sequence]?’ I think it’s hard with a character like Julia, especially for an American audience, because she’s very reserved and moody, and there is a glimpse in Venice that she is a little freer in her passions.

How did this film incarnation of Charles Ryder differ?
Goode: He’s quite mute in the film as compared to the novel. [My character] Charles Ryder narrates the book, and he describes things so well as the eyes of that world. When I’m in the movie, I’m observational — it’s a very unobliging lead role. He’s a catalyst for the action via his presence, yet he doesn’t quite drive things forward, either. He’s very back-foot.

Do you think that the film emphasizes the social-climbing aspect of Charles’ relationships with Sebastian and Julia?
Goode:  People have argued that he has this social-climbing ambition. I go against that. I think that the novel is written in the cold voice of the future, but I think Charles was, like, the loneliest guy ever back when he went off to Oxford. His mother’s dead, he’s had a loveless childhood — nobody seems to have friends in this whole fucking novel, let alone Charles. If you take out Sebastian’s homosexuality and the Catholic guilt and the class thing, he’s very comparable to Charles. The idyllic summer they have at Brideshead is kind of like they’re each having their childhood for the first time.

With regards to Sebastian’s homosexuality, what do you think the reaction will be to making his bond with Charles more explicit than in the novel?  
Goode: It’s funny that you call it explicit: it’s like you expect something with a boner involved. It was a very brave choice by Ben [Whishaw]. The book does heavily suggest that Sebastian has another homosexual relationship. I think it’s great that there is a lot of complexity and ambiguity in the male love between Charles and Sebastian. Male love exists in movies, even in something like The Shawshank Redemption — without the sex, of course.