Why the ‘Other Bennet Sister’ might be better than ‘Pride & Prejudice’ and ‘Bridgerton’
“Do you prefer a little tease of a forearm and the rest is left to your imagination?” The cast explains why their love story is different.
Mary Bennet has always been portrayed as the awkward Bennet sister. When she’s not torturing people with her piano playing or saying the wrong thing at the wrong time, she’s hovering in the background. In The Other Bennet Sister, those qualities get an endearing interpretation that makes her the main character. Mary (played here by Ella Bruccoleri) was born to be the star of her own incredibly awkward, funny, and realistic love story. Ella, Dónal Finn (who plays one point in Mary’s love triangle, Tom Hayward), and Laurie Davidson (playing the other point, William Ryder) sat down with Cosmopolitan to break down why Mary is the best Bennet sister and what makes their show different from not only Pride & Prejudice, but Bridgerton as well.
“I don’t want to completely throw shade on the other Bennet sisters,” Ella starts, “but obviously Mary is my favorite, I just think she’s the most relatable Bennet sister. She’s the one that hasn’t figured it out yet, and she’s the one that finds everything difficult, everything comes as a struggle to Mary. She’s trudging through the mud trying to figure out who she even is. It’s really nice to see a character who doesn’t know what to say, when to say it, and says the wrong thing at the wrong time. I think she’s very human.” Mary’s ability to say the exact wrong thing is impeccable and highly watchable.
Dónal and Laurie quickly agree, Mary is their favorite. “Oh God, yeah!” Ella interjects, “Imagine if they said, ‘I actually would prefer Jane or Lizzie.” Dónal brings up a dinner scene example that shows just why Mary is so special. In the scene, there’s a man sitting next to Mary who stonewalls her. “Mary just asks him what he is interested in and then he feels seen. I think she has that effect on everyone. It’s so easy to fall in love with that quality in a person, that makes you and people around you feel seen.” Dónal literally just wrote Mary’s dating profile for her. Adding on to Dónal’s deep thoughts about Mary, Laurie says, “What’s so nice is we see the best things about Mary through the lenses of different people. Because they all see something different. And often, something that she doesn’t see.”
Credit: Cosmopolitan