"I just tried to create a woman that you are instantly attracted to, not just because of what she looks like on the outside but because of her brain and because of her wit and because you know that just looking in her eyes, she's got passion and there's something going on under there and she's not just walking around being a duchess. She wants more out of life. That's what I felt about Sophie. She always wanted more. She doesn"t want to be a duchess and she doesn"t want to be somebody's wife. She wants to be in love and she wants to do something with her life. And I felt if I could create that person, then you would remember seeing her on screen and you would think that you see her more than you actually do."

With such a modern feminist outlook, Biel could easily relate to Sophie despite the time difference. "I felt like she could have easily been me, just put back in a time where I was restricted by so many things, society's restrictions and family and all the stuff that you have to not do and not say and everything. I was intrigued with bringing that person to life. I also had only done modern characters, who were very expressive and talk with their hands and this and that and with her, she's just bubbling under the surface at every moment, there's so much going on, but everything's placid and perfect up here. So I was really interested in working with those elements, as well as an accent, which I'd never done before, and dressing up and really creating a person and really stepping into the shoes of someone that I really had no idea or I had no previous experience."

Accents and corsets are hard enough to pull off, but Biel had to turn it on at a moment's notice. "It was really last minute and kind of chaotic. The person who was supposed to be playing the role, I don't know who that was or what happened, but there was an opening and literally at 6 p.m. one night I got a frantic call from my agent, it's like, 'Can you do this audition tomorrow? Can you have an accent? And can you be great?' So I went in and I read with the casting director and we worked it through and she sent it to Neil, who was already in Prague. This was like two weeks before they were going to shoot. And he liked it and Edward hadn't left yet, so they brought me back the next day to read with Edward and I just thought, 'You know, I've got nothing to lose. I've got one opportunity. I'm gonna go for it.'