From Marvel to Mr. Darcy: Why actor Angourie Rice based debut novel on ‘Pride & Prejudice'

USA Today

07-05-2025

NEW YORK – Angourie Rice is in the business of breathing new life into classics.
You've seen the actor as Betty Brant in the latest Tom Holland 'Spider-Man' movies and as Cady Heron in 2024's musical remake of 'Mean Girls.' Now, she's adding author to her repertoire with 'Stuck Up & Stupid' (out now from Candlewick Press), a YA retelling of Jane Austen's 'Pride and Prejudice' she wrote with her mother, the playwright Kate Rice.
In a sit-down interview just ahead of Mother's Day, Angourie and Kate tell USA TODAY what it was like to 'meet each other as artists' after a lifetime of being mother and daughter. Angourie says she's excited for fans to see a more personal side, especially because the book is set in two places close to her heart – her native Australia and adopted Los Angeles.
'This is sort of a piece of my home that we've put in the book and that we're sharing with people,' Angourie says. 'That's scary and vulnerable, but it's also exciting because it's something that has really defined who I am and the place that we describe in the book is so special and unique, but also I think universal.'
The ultimate mother-daughter project: How Kate and Angourie Rice wrote a novel together
'Pride and Prejudice' is well embedded in the fabric of the Rice family – Angourie recalled fond memories of Kate reading it aloud to her as a kid. Kate herself had always considered writing about the next generation of Bennet family members. Then, when Angourie asked Kate if she'd write her a modern-day retelling (perks of having a writer mom), Kate suggested they do it together.
After outlining the novel alongside Austen's original, they wrote the first few chapters by hand while on vacation on the beach. They took turns writing and reading what the other had written. They kept a strict rule with editing in those early drafts – only add, don't remove.
'As a writer, you get very critical of yourself and I didn't want us to bring that criticism to each other's work,' Kate says. 'I wanted just to make sure that it was a very supportive way of writing together because it's bad enough when you're writing and you have your own voice in your head going, that's terrible.'
'It's also very improv,' Angourie adds. 'Like 'yes and.''
Some find sharing their writing to be a vulnerable experience at first, but Angourie says that wasn't the case with 'Stuck Up & Stupid.' Kate has already seen her through 'the most embarrassing moments' of her life, she says.
'When I think about working together, I think about how great it is to have something beyond our relationship as mother and daughter,' Angourie says. 'It's coming together to create this thing as two creative people who are being creative and who tell stories. And that's really cool to sort of, I guess, meet each other as artists.'
'Stuck Up & Stupid' brings 'Pride and Prejudice' to the 21st century
'Stuck Up & Stupid' keeps the essential elements of 'Pride & Prejudice' with some key modern-day upgrades – no daughters shipped off into marriage here. Mr. Collins isn't trying to wed his cousin to keep the family fortune close. The Mr. Darcy and Bingley characters are celebrities rather than wealthy Englishmen.
'Why retell this?' was the question in both Kate and Angourie's minds as they wrote. Ultimately, it was a task of examining what universal themes survive and which deserve a fresh spin.
'There are some scenes in there that just could have happened yesterday, could have happened today,' Kate says.
'I remember feeling so intensely the anxiety and hurt of the characters,' Angourie adds. 'It didn't at all feel far away to me. It didn't feel like these characters were created 200 years ago.'
The original 'Pride and Prejudice' has a lot to say about women's inferior standing in 19th-century society. From Charlotte's spinster monologue to Lydia's scandalized elopement and the general pressure of Elizabeth and her sisters to marry off hastily, there's a lot that needed a facelift. 'Stuck Up & Stupid' is instead billed as a novel for "a generation of teens who are definitely NOT looking for love." It also gives more color to the mother character, as Mrs. Bennett is traditionally depicted as a derisive woman whose only goal is to get her daughters married.
'For us, it was also about exploring the mother and daughter relationship a bit more and really trying to give that character a chance to grow,' Angourie says.
Clare Mulroy is USA TODAY's Books Reporter, where she covers buzzy releases, chats with authors and dives into the culture of reading. Find her on Instagram, subscribe to our weekly Books newsletter or tell her what you're reading at [e-mail].