Oct 18, 2026 10:00pm IST
‘Sense and Sensibility’ Director Georgia Oakley on Casting Frank Dillane: ‘He Accepted Willoughby as a Whole Human Being’
For Jane Austen readers, 2026 brings a double treat with two screen adaptations of her works. The first, a film adaptation of Austen’s first novel, “Sense and Sensibility,” is directed by Georgia Oakley and stars Daisy Edgar-Jones and Esmé Creed-Miles as the Dashwood sisters Elinor and Marianne, Caitríona Balfe as their mother, Mrs. Dashwood, Frank Dillane as Willoughby, Herbert Nordrum as Colonel Brandon, George MacKay as Edward Ferrars and Fiona Shaw as Mrs. Jennings.
Actor Frank Dillane, who plays Willoughby, a complex character with shades of grey, is the son of “Game of Thrones” actor Stephan Dillane. He is most famous for portraying a young Tom Riddle in “Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince” and Nick Clark on “Fear of the Walking Dead”. Book readers know Willoughby as a handsome and charming young man who has much in common with Marianne Dashwood, but ultimately ends up breaking her heart. It is easy to classify him as a villain; however, Austen writes him with nuance as someone who is a product of his circumstances.
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“He’s written as a bit of a cad, a bit of a libertine,” says Dillane about his character, which has previously been reprised by Greg Wise in Ang Lee’s 1995 adaptation. “But really, Willoughby is someone in the prime of his youth. He’s exuberant. He’s passionate. He wears his heart on his sleeve. He has the whole world in front of him."
And indeed, Austen reminds us of all of these qualities in him by giving him a redemption arc at the end of the story. It is revealed that after his aunt disinherited him, Willoughby was left with several debts and was forced to marry a rich heiress even though he truly loved Marianne.
Speaking about casting Dillane as Willoughby, director Georgia Oakley says that the actor understood these nuances of the character. “I immediately gravitated toward Frank Dillane for this part because he accepted Willoughby as a whole human being,” Oakley says. “He immediately made it possible for you to not only understand the motivations of somebody like Willoughby, but also being endeared to him while hating him at the same time for some of the things that he does. I did not want to cast somebody who just rode in on a horse and wowed everybody with the beautiful looks and then was flipped into a villain in the next scene.”
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“Sense and Sensibility” released in the United States on October 16, 2026, to generally positive reviews, with some calling it a worthy successor to Ang Lee’s 1995 film starring Emma Thompson, Alan Rickman, Kate Winslet and Hugh Grant. Others have praised George MacKay’s Edward Ferrars and even clubbed the adaptation in the same group as past successful Austen adaptations like “Emma” (2020) and “Pride & Prejudice” (2005).
In India, “Sense and Sensibility” arrives in cinemas on October 30, 2026.
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