Living in Rebecca's shadow

Lily James and Armie Hammer have big shoes to fill in Netflix's reboot of Daphne du Maurier's Gothic romance

Sign up now: Get ST's newsletters delivered to your inbox

Lily James and Armie Hammer in Rebecca, the Netflix adaptation of Daphne du Maurier's 1938 mystery thriller.

Lily James and Armie Hammer in Rebecca, the Netflix adaptation of Daphne du Maurier's 1938 mystery thriller.

PHOTO: NETFLIX

As Gothic romances go, few have the pedigree of Rebecca, author Daphne du Maurier's classic 1938 mystery thriller, which in turn inspired director Alfred Hitchcock's 1940 film of the same name starring Laurence Olivier and Joan Fontaine, winner of a Best Picture Oscar.
So the stars of the new Rebecca that debuted on Netflix this week, Lily James and Armie Hammer, knew they had big shoes to fill as they retold the story - about an unnamed young woman (James) who marries a rich widower, Maxim de Winter (Hammer), then grows obsessed with his late wife Rebecca.
See more on