There was a moment in the Jane Austen period romance, Pride and Prejudice, when Matthew Macfadyen’s wealthy Mr Darcy says in a husky voice to Elizabeth Bennet, “you’ve bewitched me body and soul”.

The Emmy-winning Succession star’s portrayal of Fitzwilliam Darcy Esquire in the 2005 love story melted fans’ hearts the world over, as he turned from the unlikeable snobby aristocrat to a vulnerable, standing-in-the-rain brooding man in love.

His portrayal still resonates, and even young stars like The Bear‘s Ayo Edibiri had him as the screensaver on her laptop as a kid.

From the first screen adaptation by Sir Lawrence Olivier in 1940 to Colin Firth’s 1995 BBC version, it was Macfadyen who many say nailed the brief.

Not so fast.

In an interview on CBS Mornings after entering the MCU with Deadpool & Wolverine where he plays Mr Paradox, Macfadyen admits he felt miscast in his role as Darcy opposite Keira Knightley.

“I feel bad saying that,” he now says.

“There were moments I had a good time, but I wish I’d enjoyed it more. I wish I was less worried about it.

“I just felt a bit miscast. I’m not dishy enough, or I’m not, you know …” he continued.

“But it worked out.”

If it’s any consolation, the late actor Donald Sutherland told Rolling Stone in 2018 that he asked director Joe Wright “why the f–k” he was cast as the Bennet family patriarch, which included an ensemble cast of Judi Dench, Tom Hollander, Rosamund Pike and Carey Mulligan.

“I kept trying to quit that damn job,” Sutherland said, adding that “Joe wouldn’t let me”.

‘Darcylicious’

In a wide-ranging interview on a fan website dedicated to Mr Darcy, aptly named Darcylicious, the English film and TV actor Macfadyen, 49, who made his screen debut in 1998 in Emily Bronté’s Wuthering Heights, did admit playing the most famous character in the film was daunting.

He auditioned with Knightly, screen-tested and rehearsed with her, and made their on-screen chemistry believable.

“It was daunting in that I was aware there was the Darcy ‘thing’, and that people are quite proprietary about Pride & Prejudice as a whole.

“‘Why are they making another version?’, ‘how dare they?’, ‘you better not f–k it up!’

“They’re really fierce, the Jane-ites. Which is good, because it’s a classic, and it’s much loved,” Macfadyen told Devin Faraci after the film came out in October 2005.

Matthew Macfadyen looks ‘dishy’ enough opposite Keira Knightly in the 2005 adaptation of the 1813 novel. Photo: Focus Features

He admitted not seeing Olivier’s or Firth’s BBC version, “because you can’t as an actor, otherwise you could never play Hamlet or you could never play Richard III”.

“Actually, it was quite flattering to be in such good company.

“A lot of people asked me how I would be trying to make it different from … Firth, which is strange because even if I had seen him, I wouldn’t try, because you couldn’t. You do what you can do.

An authentic portrayal of Mr Darcy, so say his fanbase. Photo: Focus Features

To make sure he didn’t portray Darcy as completely unlikeable, he said he hoped that the director [Wright] had his “eye on it” as would have the producers who also made the huge romance hits, Love Actually and Bridget Jones’s Diary.

“But reading the script, it’s quite clear the moments when he’s vulnerable. The scene in the rain – until then he’s just unlikeable.

“He doesn’t say anything nice about anybody, he doesn’t look at anybody … it’s the scene in the rain, that car crash scene where everything goes so badly when he tells her he loves her, that’s [when you like him].

“That’s a big thing for him to say.”

These days, Macfadyen still gets recognised, not for his years playing Tom Wambsgans in the HBO black comedy drama Succession, but for playing Mr Darcy.

” …[it’s] probably the most flattering thing that happens to me … it’s a good 20 years later, so I think I can’t be ageing that badly.”