The Duchess is a film based on Amanda Foreman's biography of the scandalous, 18th-century English aristocrat Georgiana Cavendish, Duchess of Devonshire. It was released in September 2008. Originally to be directed by Susanne Bier,[2] The Duchess was directed by Saul Dibb.
Plot
Set at the end of the eighteenth century, The Duchess is the story of the beautiful and, glamorous Georgiana Cavendish, the most fascinating woman of the age. While her beauty and charisma made her name, her extravagant tastes and appetite for gambling and love made her infamous. Married young to the older, distant Duke of Devonshire, intimate of ministers and princes, Georgiana became a fashion icon, a doting mother, a shrewd political operator and darling of the common people. But at the core of her story is a desperate search for love. From Georgiana’s passionate and doomed affair with Earl Grey to the complex ménage à trois with her husband and her best friend, Lady Bess Foster, The Duchess is a very contemporary tale of fame, notoriety and the search for love. (Her love child with Lord Grey was Eliza Courtney).
Production
The Duchess is financed by BBC Films and Pathé.[3] Make-up and hair design, both significant in a Georgian-set period piece, are by Daniel Phillips. The Duchess was filmed at Twickenham Film Studios and on-location at Chatsworth, Bath, Holkham Hall, Norfolk, Clandon Park, Kedleston Hall and The University of Greenwich: London.
Regarding lead actress Keira Knightley, director Saul Dibb said The Duchess was "a chance to take a character from late childhood - she's married at 17 - into full adulthood, 10 years later."[4] It was also a chance to work with Ralph Fiennes, who she regarded as one of her most accomplished costars to date; Dibb said, "When I said, 'We've got Ralph interested in playing the Duke,' we both took a gulp and went, 'F..k.' ... But I didn't for one second feel that she wasn't up to the task."[4]
Cast
* Keira Knightley as Georgiana Cavendish, Duchess of Devonshire
* Ralph Fiennes as William Cavendish, 5th Duke of Devonshire
* Hayley Atwell as Elizabeth Cavendish, Duchess of Devonshire
* Charlotte Rampling as Lady Spencer
* Dominic Cooper as Charles Grey, 2nd Earl Grey
* Aidan McArdle as Richard Brinsley Sheridan
* Emily Jewell as Nanny
* Calvin Dean as Devonshire House Servant
* Simon McBurney as Charles James Fox
* Hannah Stokely as Maid
* Richard Syms as Dr Neville
* Richard McCabe as Sir James Hare
* Andy Armour as Burleigh the Butler
* Emily Cohen as Harryo
* Poppy Wigglesworth as Charlotte (aged 10)
* Mercy Fiennes Tiffin as Little Georgiana
* Sebastian Applewhite as Augustus
* Eva Hrela as Charlotte (aged 3)
* Bruce Mackinnon as Sir Peter Teazle actor
* Alistair Petrie as Heaton
* Georgia King as Lady Teazle actress
* Kate Burdette as Lady Harriet
* Paul Daley as George Augustus Henry Cavendish, created 1st Earl of Burlington of the 2nd order (AKA Duke's Brother)
* Hannah Stretton as Lady Mary
* Hollie Standish-Leigh as Lady Patricia
