Few young actresses radiate such immediate intensity as Esme Creed-Miles. There’s something about her — the piercing gaze, the restless posture, the husky, determined voice — that always feels on the verge of exploding or vanishing. The daughter of actress Samantha Morton, one of the most brilliant and raw performers in recent British cinema, Esme could have chosen a safer, more conventional path. But from her earliest career moves, she’s made it clear that she isn’t interested in being “just someone’s daughter,” nor in fitting into any mold she hasn’t crafted herself.

Born in 2000, Esme grew up surrounded by art, politics, and emotional depth. Her mother, an Oscar nominee known for devastating roles in films like Sweet and Lowdown and Morvern Callar, and of course, a recent standout as the super Serpent Queen, has always resisted Hollywood’s easy formulas. That same spirit of resistance is visible in Esme, who began acting as a teenager but only gained international recognition with her lead role in Amazon Prime Video’s Hanna (2019–2021).

In Hanna, Esme played a teenager trained as a military weapon, fleeing her past while discovering the world — and herself. The role demanded not only physical stamina (she performed most of her stunts without a double) but also emotional vulnerability. Her performance balanced brutality and tenderness, survival instinct and adolescent longing. That’s when people began to really notice her: there was something in her that wasn’t rehearsed or overpolished. There was truth. There was a presence.

Since then, she has chosen her projects with care. No rom-coms, no pretty background characters. Esme gravitates toward roles that are fractured, searching — people who don’t quite know who they are yet, but are willing to find out, even if it’s messy. She’s said in interviews that she’s drawn to stories “about the margins, about people out of place.” Perhaps that’s what led her to her newest, and perhaps most unexpected, challenge: playing Marianne Dashwood in a bold new adaptation of Sense and Sensibility.

Marianne — the impulsive, romantic, brilliant, and self-destructive younger sister — often plays second fiddle to the calm and collected Elinor. But in this version, directed by Georgia Oakley (Blue Jean) and starring Daisy Edgar-Jones as Elinor, Marianne is poised to take on new emotional depth. And it’s hard to imagine a better actress than Esme Creed-Miles to play a character who isn’t just young and in love, but furious, disillusioned, and right on the edge — and precisely because of that, deeply modern.

This isn’t about making Marianne “contemporary” in the obvious way — handing her a smartphone and a feminist monologue. The point seems to be that Marianne was already a woman ahead of her time. Her refusal to temper her emotions, her scorn for convention, her plunge into passion without restraint — all of it made her radical in 1811, and perhaps more so in 2025. With her unpredictable presence and emotionally raw delivery, Esme might finally give Marianne the space she deserves: not just as the “romantic” sister, but as a tragic, brilliant soul burning too brightly for the world she was born into.

Filming is set to take place in the English countryside, with a predominantly female creative team. The project aims not just to honor Austen’s original novel, but to excavate it — to explore the subtext, the emotional bruises, the ways women carry loss and hope in silence. Like recent reinterpretations such as the Sense and Sensibility Hallmark Mahogany version (2024), this new adaptation acknowledges that Austen’s work is ripe for fresh, intersectional, and emotionally daring perspectives. In this context, casting Esme — someone who defies the usual “period drama ingénue” look — is a bold move, one that affirms the film’s desire to give Marianne her full, complicated humanity.

Beyond her obvious talent, Esme brings a kind of artistic integrity that feels increasingly rare among her generation. She’s interested in directing, writes poetry, and has expressed a desire to work with women filmmakers unafraid of discomfort. In many ways, she’s shaping a career that reflects the very themes Austen explored — independence, identity, resistance — but through a contemporary, cinematic lens.

If there’s one thing that defines Esme Creed-Miles, it’s her refusal to be agreeable. She doesn’t chase likability. She chases meaning. Her characters are often difficult, raw, searching — and they stay with you long after the credits roll.

By stepping into the role of Marianne Dashwood — a heroine who dared to feel too much in a world that rewarded self-restraint — Esme finds a historical mirror worthy of her own artistic temperament. A character who, like her, will never be easily forgotten or dismissed. Who burns. Who unsettles. Who endures.