LOS ANGELES (AP) — Ruth Wilson isn't very Jane Eyre-like in her opinion of the demure Charlotte Bronte character she plays on TV."Sometimes she can come across a bit pious and you want to sort of kick her bum and just say, `Get on with it'." says the young British actress, not long out of drama school, whose portrayal can be seen in a new adaptation of the oft-filmed romance novel.

The two-part miniseries airs on January 21 and 28 at 10 p.m. Bermuda time on PBS's Masterpiece Theatre.

The story of a young Victorian governess — who has to overcome abandonment, poverty, cruelty, emotional betrayal and something scary in the attic before finally finding true love — first hit the screen in the silent era.

The best-known film version was made in 1944, starring Joan Fontaine and Orson Welles, who played Eyre's employer and eventual true love, Edward Rochester. The most recent feature version was released in 1996, starring Charlotte Gainsbourg and William Hurt. The last TV movie came in 1997, starring Samantha Morton and Ciaran Hinds.

The director and screenwriter of the latest version are both women, as well as something of British literary-adaptation experts: Susanna White, whose credits include six episodes of the Charles Dickens' miniseries "Bleak House", and Sandy Welch, who scripted the Dickens miniseries "Our Mutual Friend".

"I think it's the first time a woman has ever done the adaptation and I think that's a central thing to this piece, because its heart is absolutely centred on Jane, whereas a lot of them might have been called 'Rochester'," White stresses.

So casting someone with a feisty spirit in the title role was particularly important to White, who discovered Wilson, now 25, via the traditional audition process.

"One of the qualities I really liked about her was you look at her one way and she's very beautiful and then you look at her another way and she can look quite plain at times. That was something I felt was important to bring out, because I think one of the things people just love about the book is how Jane's a sort of Everywoman. Every young girl has been through that stage of life of feeling completely unattractive and no one is going to love them."

Wilson, meanwhile, sounded quite loveable and lively herself over the phone from London. She earned very favourable reviews when the "Jane Eyre" miniseries aired last year in England, and is now in great demand. She was talking as she was riding in a car on her way back from rehearsals for the TV drama "Capturing Mary", in which she plays the young version of a journalist portrayed by Maggie Smith.

She finds that amusing because it's Smith's son, Toby Stephens, who plays her sexy yet moody Rochester, who is haunted by his past love life.

"I called Toby and he went quiet when I told him I was playing his mom. He found that a bit weird," laughs Wilson.

Wilson says it was a "complete blessing," for someone with her limited experience to act opposite Stephens, who was the villain Gustav Graves in the James Bond movie "Die Another Day", and has starred on stage in the title roles of Shakespeare's "Hamlet" and "Coriolanus".

But, she admits, "When I first heard it was him I was like, 'Oh, no,' because he's got an amazing sneer, with those flaring nostrils, and I thought this guy is going to be horrible and have a huge ego, but he's the total opposite to that. He's the most generous and lovely guy."

Wilson's only previous TV role was Jewel Diamond in the sitcom, "Suburban Shootout", on Britain's Channel Five.

"She was a bit of a floozy really, a young teenager after anything in trousers," she says, describing Diamond's short skirts, fake tan, heavy makeup and big hair. "To go from that to 'Jane Eyre',' which covers up every bit of flesh you've got and takes off all makeup, was a sort of fantastic switch. Both were really interesting characters to play, but I think I prefer Jane Eyre."

Wilson first read Bronte's 1847 novel when she was "about 12". She used it as a reference while filming, but didn't look at any previous screen versions so she could "just do it how I think I will do it."

White first read the book when she was about 14. "It grabbed me and it's a book that's never left me. There's a wonderful, passionate aspect to the story, but also the whole gothic element, a very scary story."

She was determined to feature epic British landscape, so she filmed last spring on cold, muddy, but bleakly beautiful locations, mainly in Derbyshire, which would have been familiar to Bronte, who came from nearby Yorkshire.

Haddon Hall, a medieval mansion, was used as Rochester's foreboding home, Thornfield Hall, and the cast and crew "were always marching across the moors, because I really wanted to get the sense of the story being set in a very wild place."