The Love Interestย by Victoria Walters is out today! Grab your copy for 99p ๐
When I started writing The Love Interest, I knew my main character Liv Jones was a hopeless romantic: a librarian who dreamed of writing her own romance novel but was stuck on how to come up with the love interest in the story. And I instantly knew who her favourite male character would be, because he has always been mine, and that is Mr Darcy!
I read Pride and Prejudice after loving the BBC 1995 adaptation of the book and afterwards, I was hooked. That book is still my favourite novel and Mr Darcy my favourite love interest. Which is why I added a lot of mentions of the novel and the BBC adaptation into my book, and Iโm not the only one who canโt resist a homage to the character.
Here are five of my favourite homages to our most enduring love interest…
Pride and Prejudice: The BBC series (1995)
The best adaptation of the book, donโt fight me! Itโs faithful to the story, has a great cast and locations and the attention to detail is sublime. But letโs face it, my favourite part is when Colin Firth as Mr Darcy jumps into the lake at his sprawling Pemberley estate in a white shirt and emerges soaking wet. SWOON. If you also love this scene then look out for all the mentions of it in my book and the final chapter…
Bridget Jones’s Diary (2001)
The book by Helen Fielding is a modern adaptation of Pride and Prejudice but in a genius move, the film-makers took that link one step further for the film adaptation: they cast Colin Firth (from the BBC series) as the love interest โ Mark DARCY. The book and the film also show the 1995 series as Bridget is obsessed with the lake scene too. Itโs all delightfully meta!
Austenland (2013)
I needed a film in my book that my characters would have seen ten years ago and I was excited when I realised Austenland was released in 2013. Adapted from a novel, Itโs about an Austen-themed retreat and of course, the lead in the movie is obsessed with Pride and Prejudice. And once there, she instantly hates Mr Henry Nobley โ modelled naturally on Mr Darcy! Itโs thoroughly tongue-in-cheek.
Bridgerton (Season 2 – 2022)
Season two of the beloved Netflix series follows my favourite trope and the one used in Pride and Prejudice and my book: enemies-to-lovers! The two leads take an instant dislike to one another and in a fabulous homage that made me scream with delight, Anthony Bridgerton falls into a lake and is wearing, of course, a white shit that is rendered
completely see-through. LOVED IT.
Barbie (2023)
In the movie when Barbie starts to feel depressed, they cut to a fake ad for Depression Barbie showing her watching the 1995 Pride and Prejudice adaptation. A nod to the fact the series is essential comfort viewing all these years on! I gasped in the cinema when I saw the brief clip of Colin Firth as Mr Darcy. By then The Love Interest was written and ready to go, and it cemented my belief that Mr Darcy endures to this day.
Mr Darcy will always be mine, and so many other peopleโs, favourite love interest. So, thank you Jane Austen!