No pressure on Darcy role for Cowan

8:25am Saturday 30th August 2008

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Lost In Austen star Elliot Cowan insists he felt no pressure taking on the role of Mr Darcy.

The 31-year-old actor plays Jane Austen's romantic hero - famously played by Colin Firth in the BBC adaptation of Pride And Prejudice and by Matthew Macfadyen in Joe Wright's Oscar-nominated film version - in the new ITV drama.

When asked if he felt any pressure, Elliot said: "No, not really, because when I got the part I was playing Henry V which has a similar sort of iconography within the theatre canon."

The actor continued: "I thought this was just a natural progression in a sense because he has had some wonderful actors playing him in the past, but I wasn't too worried about that and I just figured providing I stuck to the script and did what I could to the best of my ability, things would be fine."

He added: "I was most excited on my mother's behalf as well because she had always been a big fan of Colin Firth's rendition of the character, and I was more pleased to be able to tell her I won't die in this, and also I'm playing a guy that you kind of dig quite a lot.

"Obviously, being my mother, that had a different spin on this time, but that was one of the pleasures of taking the role."

The comedy drama tells the story of Amanda (Jemima Rooper), a modern heroine who manages to swap places with Elizabeth Bennet (Gemma Arterton) and finds herself living inside the novel of Pride And Prejudice.