Pascal Le Segretain/Getty ImagesIt is a truth universally acknowledged that a movie in possession of smokin' hot source material must be in want of more than two actors.
Jennifer Ehle is in talks to play Anastasia Steele's mom in the upcoming film adaptation of Fifty Shades of Grey starring Dakota Johnson as the sexually inexperienced college student who falls under the spell of mysterious, S&M-practicing billionaire Christian Grey.
Deadline.com was first to report the desired casting coup.
We'd say that the fresh-faced 43-year-old is just old enough to be believable as the 21-year-old Steele's mom. (Johnson is 24.)
Ehle has been on a Hollywood roll over the past few years, scoring roles in Zero Dark Thirty, Contagion and The Ides of March and playing Patrick Wilson's ghostly ex-wife on A Gifted Man.
But she is perhaps most well known—particularly among Jane Austen fans—for her role as Elizabeth Bennet opposite Colin Firth's Mr. Darcy in the beloved BBC miniseries version of Pride & Prejudice.
As for Ehle's would-be Fifty Shades role, Carla May Wilks is on her fourth marriage and is described by her daughter in the E.L. James-penned novel as being flighty, flirty and self-centered and with the "attention span of a goldfish."
Charlie Hunnam is onboard to play Christian Grey and Sam Taylor-Johnson is directing the film for Universal Pictures and Focus Features.
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