Mansfield Park casting rumours

UK newspaper The Daily Mirror has reported speculation that Eastenders star Michelle Ryan who plays Zoe Slater in the popular soap opera is set to play Maria Bertram in the forthcoming TV production of Mansfield Park. The newspaper also reports that Jemma Seagrave, Maggie O'Neill (recently appearing in Channel 4's Shameless), and Joseph Morgan (The Line of Beauty 2005) have also been cast, but no mention is made of potential roles. Douglas Hodge has also been cast, and looks likely to play Sir Thomas Bertram. Hodge comes with quite an acting pedigree when it comes to literary adaptation. He has played Tertius Lydgate in the BBC's 1995 Middlemarch, Roger Carbury in the BBC's The Way We Live Now 2001 and Pitt Crawley in Mira Nair's film version of Vanity Fair in 2004. Full details on the casting story can be accessed at www.mirror.co.uk/tvandfilm/tvland.