JEREMY Northam is confused. Downstairs in the screening room of Buena Vista's London headquarters, a group of regional press journalists are watching his performance as Mr Knightley in the film adaptation of Jane Austen's Emma. As he describes one journalist's reaction to the film, which opens in Ireland next Friday, he admits it is a tricky business trying to second-guess film buffs. "I heard this woman whisper to her friend that the film made her want to go out and get married right away. That was odd," he said.
Northam appears to have given little thought to his description in the British press as "the housewife's choice" and says he is "hopelessly unaware" of being portrayed as the new English hero. He also claims that he doesn't fully understand the attraction of Austen's male characters, apart perhaps, from Mr Darcy. "You don't see Knightley throwing a wobbly or cursing his bad luck that he is on his own," he says. But the role of Mr Knightley is one which many actors covet.
Knightley, of course, chooses the plain girls sitting out the dances at parties and generally takes pity on the good and weak of Highbury, the fictional setting of the novel. Most importantly, he is Emma's friend, brother-in-law and mentor, "observing her blunderings with some amusement", while Emma plays the role of matchmaker to her friends.
Northam says he first tried to read Emma when he was 14. "But I didn't get very far. I wasn't really a fan, I have to say." Now he says he could happily talk all day on the subject of Knightley.
When I read the script initially, I think I was being considered for another part and I remember thinking Oh, no Knightley is the part I really want to be seen for. When I met the director, we got on very well and we talked about everything except the film. At the end of it, he said he thought Knightley was the part for me, so I didn't have to bring up the issue at all.
In reading for the part, Northam says he realised it was a challenge he "really desperately wanted, and if you really want something it can be nerve-wracking... You are never quite sure of the value system behind an audition. You never know if you are going to be right or wrong the minute you walk in the door, or if someone's going to say, `oh, that's interesting, it's not quite how I imagined it, but let's try it this way'. It's something of a lottery." If women will want to get married when they leave the cinema, what of the European audience's reaction to the part of Emma being played by an American actress, Gwyneth Paltrow? Northam says the US press is anticipating a backlash, but he defends the director's choice.
"I'm not saying there are not things an English actress couldn't bring to it but I think Gwyneth brings something which is different. I think by nature she has got a sort of New York, urban attitude. She is very 20th-century and she snapped back into the present as soon as the director shouted `cut'." "It was very bucolic and pastoral. We all had great fun down in Dorset with Australians, Brits and Americans in the movie. But I don't think our Emma is particularly at odds with what Austen herself hinted at. There is a sharpness about Emma and a kind of sharpness about Austen's writing which is probably more akin to late 20th-century urban sensibility than we might at first believe." HIS own theory on why Austen's writing is in vogue just now is based upon the perceived need in us all to find an ideal partner. "A lot of the stories are based upon finding a relationship based on real knowledge of each other that's not swayed by any other agenda." In the long-term, Northam sees Knightley's love for Emma over 21 years as a journey of acceptance.
"He's quiet, he's not tearing up the scenery. It's a quiet journey from being this person who regards Emma as almost a sister with a protective, avuncular affection to somebody who has come to terms with different kinds of feelings.
"The thing about Knightley is that he has learnt to be altruistic, he has learnt to be kind and selfless and for various reasons, which aren't really explained in the book, I imagine that his life has somehow become circumscribed by duty and responsibility - so much so that he has to learn to be selfless and I think in the course of the story he has to learn to be selfish again. He has to learn to remember things which he has long forgotten." There are times, however, when Knightley's behaviour towards Emma will perplex the audience. "But he's faithful, he always has the strongest faith that she will change, be better. That's what I love about Knightley."