Andrew Davies: I would have loved to see Colin Firth totally naked in Pride and Prejudice

The man behind the famous Austen adaptation admitted last year he'd originally intended for Mr Darcy's lake scene to be full-frontal...

Susanna Lazarus, 12 July 2014

RadioTimes

When Andrew Davies first wrote the script for Pride and Prejudice, he had Colin Firth's Mr Darcy leaping into the lake entirely naked – a detail that, much to the chagrin of female viewers, never quite materialised...

But the Bafta-winning screenwriter has since admitted it might have been interesting had his original plans been realised on screen. "It seems to have worked out awfully well the way it turned out," he told RadioTimes.com. "But I also would have loved to have seen how it turned out if he'd been totally naked which is how people went swimming in those days." 

So would we, Andrew. So would we...

Davies, 77, also adapted Michael Dobbs' House of Cards for the BBC back in the 1990s, although concedes he didn't always get on with the author when it came to creative decision-making. "It was a little bit of a tricky situation because politically we came from different ends of the spectrum. He thought I was, at times, painting a very bad view of Tories in general and using Francis Urquhart as a prime example."

Davies also serves as an executive producer on the show's Netflix remake, set in Washington DC and starring Kevin Spacey and Robin Wright as Frank and Claire Underwood, although he reveals his day-to-day input is minimal. "They're not particularly interested in hearing my opinion on it. The deal is they pay me a lot of money and I do nothing at all which is a deal you rarely get in life."