‘Sanditon’ Stars Rose Williams and Ben Lloyd-Hughes Take Us Behind-the-Scenes of Those Schoolroom Scenes

Sanditon Season 2 might feel at first like a dampened down version of the Masterpiece on PBS’s rule-breaking first season. After all, we’re not getting nearly the same amount of racy sexuality that Season 1 of Sanditon brought. However in Sanditon Season 2 Episode 2, Charlotte (Rose Williams) goes where no Jane Austen has ever gone before. She goes to work.

While Sanditon Season 1 took Jane Austen’s unfinished final novel as its source of inspiration, Sanditon Season 2 has to build off of Season 1’s finale without stars like Theo James, Leo Suter, or Mark Stanley returning. For the most part, the show has placed those actors’ characters conveniently off-screen. However, with Theo James’s Sidney Parker not returning, Charlotte must deal with the desolation of being a single woman in a Regency world. She can either marry a practical match (like Ralph the farmer back in Willingdon) or she must go out into the world and make money so as to not drain her parents’ resources. A heart-broken, but independent Charlotte chooses to work.

At the end of the Sanditon Season 2 premiere, we learned that the reclusive Alexander Colbourne (Ben Lloyd-Hughes) would employ Charlotte as his governess. So how did Charlotte’s first day go? Not well, as we saw. But how was it for stars Rose Williams and Ben Lloyd-Hughes on set? Much better.

“Stepping into that world was so much fun. Whenever we shot anything at Herrick Park we were at an abandoned hotel with beautiful grounds. It was a kind of huge, gothic, old house,” Rose Williams said before singing her co-stars’ praises.

“There’s a real sweetness to the dynamic between us actors and what’s happening on screen. Yes, Mr. Colbourne is emotionally detached but there’s something — even though this man is clearly emotionally detached — he obviously cares about these two girls,” Williams said, before shouting out Flo Wilson, who plays housekeeper Mrs. Wheatley, and Eloise Webb and Flora Mitchell, who play her charges Augusta and Leo.

Augusta and Leo are less than enthusiastic students onscreen, but Williams adored shooting the classroom scenes.

“I personally really enjoyed shooting stuff in the school room. It was a beautiful set, ” Williams said, before teasing how young Flora Mitchell inspired a change to a future episode’s scene. “Tis is a fun little fact. There’s a scene in Episode 4 where Charlotte is giving the girls a music lesson. And in between takes Floret just sat down at the piano that no one really used and started playing this tune. Like [she] was extremely competent. We all just kinda had our mouths open and just stared at her.”

Williams revealed that director Ethosheia Hylton decided that they would use Mitchell’s playing in the scene (which we won’t spoil quite yet).

Ben Lloyd-Hughes said that working with Eloise Webb and Flora Mitchell was “a lot of fun.”

“They’re two amazing actresses with really exciting futures ahead of them,” Lloyd-Hughes said. “I really enjoyed the energy that they would always bring to every scene and every day. They had such a lack of cynicism. Inevitably, when you work with actors, sometimes people are tired and bored and fragile and hungover, but they were always ready and waiting and at the top of their game. Despite Flora having to do studies in between every scene and have a chaperone all the time. But it was a joy.”

It might have been a joy off-screen, but as we’ve seen Charlotte still has a bit to learn when it comes to being a teacher.

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