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August 9, 2025 13 mins

2025 is a big year for Jane Austen fans, as it marks 250 years since the English novelist's birth. 

A line up of events have been taking place throughout the year - but also coinciding with the anniversary is a French Austen-esque rom com.

The film is called Jane Austen Wrecked My Life and it tells the story of struggling writer Agathe, played by Camille Rutherford. 

"She doesn't care and I like that about her. She's also kind of a real rebel because of that... she's not grungy at all."  

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Speaker 1 (00:06):
You're listening to the Sunday Session podcast with Francesca Rudgin
from News talksb.

Speaker 2 (00:12):
Twenty twenty five is a big year for Jane Austen fans.
Is It Marx two hundred and fifty years since the
English novelist's birth. A lineup of events had been taking
place throughout the year, but also coinciding with the anniversary
is a French austin esque rom com. The film is
called Jane Austen Wrecked My Life, and it tells the
story of a struggling writer, A Gut, played by Camille Rutherford.

(00:35):
You may recognize Camille from the likes of Anatomy of
a Fall. To discuss the film and all things Jane Austen,
Camille joins me, Now, thank you so much for being here.

Speaker 3 (00:44):
You're welcome.

Speaker 2 (00:45):
I love a Gut. What a delightful character. What drew
you to her?

Speaker 4 (00:51):
What drew me to a get many things? First, I
think it's what I like the most is that she's
a writer. Well, she's trying to be. She's struggling to
become a writer. But my sister herself wrote a novel.
I'm very very close to my sister in real life
and She wrote a novel that came out two years ago,

(01:13):
and it was quite difficult for her to finish it
because she was also suffering from imposter syndrome, just like
a gat And I really when I read the script,
it reminded me a lot of my sister. And I
like the fight that it was also a movie about
the act of writing, because I think writing is awful.

(01:34):
It's so difficult. Everything there's nothing more unnatural than writing.
Everything pushes you not to write. And I think that
writers are the coolest people in the world. So I
like the idea of playing a struggling writer because I
think that writing is Yeah, it's the act.

Speaker 3 (01:53):
The act of it is.

Speaker 4 (01:53):
The act of it is very hard. And I think writers,
most of the time, they don't write. They're just looking
out of the window, gazing and thinking. And I have
a very good friends that she writes scripts for movies.
She's really famous in front and she told me I
only write like an hour or two hours a day
most of the because the rest of the time, I'm
I'm fighting, uh, because it's so I don't want to write.

Speaker 3 (02:16):
It's boring, it's hard, it's.

Speaker 4 (02:18):
I just want to zoo, like like just hang around
on my Instagram or read a book. And I I
spend like hours trying to find excuses not to write,
and when I finally do it, it's it's amazing. And yeah,
I've sold a lot about my sister, my friend who
writes scripts.

Speaker 2 (02:39):
I love it. What about you? Have you ever felt
that the imposter syndrome?

Speaker 3 (02:44):
Oh?

Speaker 4 (02:45):
Yes, yes, I think we can all be very we
can all relate to. I guess she's a very relatable
character because she we all suffer from. Most of us
suffer from that imposter syndrome at least once in our lives.
It's a yeah, there's always moments where we are doubting
a lot about our capacities to do anything. And yeah,

(03:07):
there's definitely moments, especially when you're an actor. For me,
no one forced me to be an actress, but it's
you have to deal with a lot of rejection and
and yes, so many times, even now today, I'm thinking,
I'm always thinking, oh am I really talented enough?

Speaker 3 (03:25):
Et cetera.

Speaker 2 (03:27):
I think another reason she is so relatable is you
know she she works in a bookshop. She's a romance
writer who can't get past a couple of chapters before
the writer's block hits, and she feels stuck in life,
as if her life is on hold. And I think
that is very relatable because it takes a lot of
energy to be constantly living life, doesn't it.

Speaker 4 (03:46):
Yes, Yeah, definitely, yeah.

Speaker 3 (03:51):
I don't know what to add. Why you said it all?

Speaker 2 (03:54):
Yeah?

Speaker 3 (03:54):
Yeah, energy to live a life. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (03:57):
And yet she's really kind of happy to be herself,
like she might not feel like she fits in anywhere,
but she's also so not trying to conform. Would you agree?

Speaker 3 (04:09):
Yes?

Speaker 4 (04:10):
I agree, yes, she I think she knows that she
might be a bit old fashioned for a lot of people,
or even a little bit cheesy, but she doesn't care.
And I like that about her. She's also kind of
a real rebel because of that. She's not a punk.
The way she dresses is very can be a little

(04:31):
bit cheedy with her with her presses, with with flowers,
her flower and her little bike and and her hair
and her it's she doesn't she's not grungy at all,
and I think today it's more fashionable to have grungy
clothes and and yeah, and listened to like rap or

(04:53):
techno music. But she knows that she's a bit old
fashioned because she likes classical music and she reads Jane often.
But yeah, that's very interesting about her she as you say,
she well, yeah she knows about it, but she does
and care. That's that's very interesting.

Speaker 2 (05:08):
Yeah, creating a character in a rom com can that
be had because sometimes and I mean this is not
a normal romantic comedy, but the characters can be quite cliche.
Did you put a lot of work into a gat?

Speaker 3 (05:25):
Yes?

Speaker 4 (05:25):
I think, well, what hell is that? We rehearsed a
lot with Laura the director to understand what she really
wanted because at first, what I like the most in
the script was that there's there's there's a few scenes
where it's it's there's jokes like pure slapstick comedy, like
the the scene where.

Speaker 3 (05:47):
Well, there's a lot.

Speaker 4 (05:48):
Sadly, there's a lot of the slapstick scenes that we
didn't film because we didn't have enough time or money.
But yeah, there's this scene where they come home where
she comes home drunk and she and she asks, uh, Charlie,
if he's not gonna, you know, go down on her
very quickly?

Speaker 2 (06:07):
Uh?

Speaker 4 (06:08):
That was that?

Speaker 3 (06:09):
That was funny.

Speaker 4 (06:10):
But yeah, I I we we we worked a lot
and I think we needed to work because so that
I could understand perfectly.

Speaker 3 (06:19):
What Looha wanted. Because I understood after the rehearsals, or
during the rehearsal, that she didn't.

Speaker 4 (06:24):
Want to make an a parody. I don't know how
to say parod in English, A satire. She didn't want
to She didn't want it to be a She didn't
want us to make fun of rom coms.

Speaker 3 (06:37):
She didn't want it.

Speaker 4 (06:37):
She didn't want to say Nolson wrecked my life to
be a typical rom com. But she also didn't want
us to make like an s n L sketch out
of it. Uh. And I thought that took me a
while to understand, because I really thought we were gonna
like mock rom coms and and mock the cheesiness of
of most rom coms. From from my point of view,

(06:58):
they can be very cheesy and boring. And then I
understood that she didn't want to mock them. She didn't
want to make a She didn't want it to be cynical.
She would always asking me, telling me careful with it
being too the bon't be I don't want my movie
to be cynical. Uh, it's uh, it's a it's a
love declaration to rom coms. And at the same time,
I'm playing with the the gen of it. But I

(07:21):
never want the movie to be cynical. I never want
us to mock to mock the gender. So I always
had to keep that in mind when in playing a game.

Speaker 2 (07:29):
But the time, yeah, no, And but the tone, the
tone is absolutely perfect because it is very funny and
and and wonderfully unpredictable and a little bit egy. But
also it's got human emotion in there. I mean it's
quite sad at times, you know, it's it's a it's
actually a really beautiful I found it at the end,
a really beautiful, uplifting story.

Speaker 3 (07:51):
Oh great, Yeah, I agree.

Speaker 4 (07:53):
I don't think it's a comedy that much, to be honest,
I I think it's a very melancholic movieh sad movie,
and and there's a few jokes in it, but I
agree it's not it's not always funny, not at all.
And because the red of the movie is so slow, Yeah,
there's a lot of melancholy to it.

Speaker 2 (08:13):
I read you instantly connected with the director, Laura Piani,
and that she was really encouraged that you were on time,
and then that you ordered fries and beer when you met.
Is that what it takes to connect with your director?

Speaker 3 (08:30):
Yes, yes, it was very funny. Yeah.

Speaker 4 (08:32):
We Well, first, it's always very nice when you don't
have to audition, because she met, we met in the bar,
and I thought she was going to say, Okay, I
want to audition with you, but she ended up just saying, okay,
the part.

Speaker 3 (08:46):
Is for you.

Speaker 4 (08:47):
So that was great because it's very rare when it
when when it's very rare not to have to audition,
not to go in and and and read sines and
yeah they app yeah, I I yeah that yeah. That
anecdote of the beer it fell on the table and
on her clothes. I was really embarrassed.

Speaker 2 (09:06):
Well, I can say I think she would have known
right then and there that she had the right person
for this character. You are you a fan of Jane Austen?

Speaker 3 (09:15):
Not really?

Speaker 4 (09:16):
No, Well, to be honest, well, I'm half English, so
I knew Jane Austen.

Speaker 3 (09:21):
Because most English people know Jane Austen.

Speaker 4 (09:25):
And I watched all the bb the Big Long Pride
and Prejudice BBC adaptation on television. I had the DVD
when I was a teenager and I would watch it
over and over again, and in summer when I would
go to Durham in the northeast of England, where my
grandparents used to live, and we would watch it over
and over again. And then we would also watch Sense
and Sensibility, the Beautiful Angle movie written by Emma Thompson.

(09:48):
I still love that film. I think it's a very
good I think it's the best Jane Norsten adaptation, really,
And we would watch these over and over again. But
and then what I liked was to make fun out
of like we thought.

Speaker 3 (10:01):
We always saw if my.

Speaker 4 (10:02):
Sister was a bit over the top, so we would pretend,
we would make pretend we were had wearing puff sleeves,
and we would make fun of of their way, of
the way they they talked. You know, hello, have you
made the acquaintance of Sir Colin very agreeable gentlemen? We
always thought it was a bit too too much, and
and we would laugh. We would make fun of, yeah,

(10:22):
the way they talked, their vocabulary, and and their their
exaggerated politeness, and yeah, we made fun of of of
their traditions in the books which we thought were a
bit yeah, a bit yeah, a bit too much and
a bit too conservative. But at the same time, we
always loved these movies because we were very my Sis

(10:45):
and I think I'm both very romantic, so we were
always very We were always drawn to the characters and
we are very close. And in her Jane Olson's.

Speaker 3 (10:54):
Novels, it's a lot about sisters.

Speaker 4 (10:56):
And they're close to very very close, and we rerelated
to the sisters, to their relationships and the stories between
the sisters and their their quarrels and everything. Because it
was we had the same even in two thousand and
eight or something, and then when I was it took me.
It was not until I was seventeen that I finally
read a Jane Austen novel. I think it was Sense
and Sensibility, but that's I think. I also read Emma

(11:19):
when I was about twenty three, but that's all I have.
I've only read two of novels.

Speaker 2 (11:25):
I loved the locations in this film. They're really lovely,
from the bookshop, which is just fantastic comparison, through to
the rural the rural settings. Was it all shot in
France or did you get to England?

Speaker 4 (11:38):
Yes, well, all the movie was shot in France. Yes.
Sadly it's getting more and more difficult to film in
the UK because of Brexit, and because of the situation
of cinema as you know, which is always very difficult,
especially for art house films, and it's always very expensive
to film in the UK. So we ended up having

(12:00):
to pretend the Jane Norton Society was we we filmed
in front an hour and a half from Paris in
the in the somewhere in the countryside, and we had
to pretend it was England because it was just impossible
to show them in the in the UK we've brexited.
And also right the producing movies in the UK and

(12:23):
producing movies in France are very they are very they
don't connect very well, so it's always very difficult.

Speaker 2 (12:29):
Well, it all came together absolutely beautifully. I so enjoyed this,
and I love the fact that, you know, we're seeing
more and more now atually people sort of tackle romantic
comedies with and you know, without turning them into sort
of cliches and giving us something new. And I really
did enjoy this and loved your character. So thank you

(12:51):
so much for your time.

Speaker 4 (12:52):
Oh you're welcome, thank you, thank you very much.

Speaker 2 (12:55):
That was actress Camille Rutherford. Her film Jane Austin Wrecked
My Life. It's quite a delight and it is in
cinemas this Thursday.

Speaker 1 (13:03):
For more from the Sunday Session with Francesca rud listen
live to News Talks at B from nine am Sunday,
or follow the podcast on iHeartRadio.
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