#;source material

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Allerdale Hall is her sanctuary. She grew up in a very small area of the house, and I connect her to an animal who spends a lot of time in a cage. Even when you let them out, they keep trying to go back into it because they feel safe there. What's important is sustaining the home because it's the only place she's ever felt like she's belonged.

Jessica Chastain on Lucille, The Art of Darkness

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Lady Sharpe's upswept hair was a rich chestnut; it was dotted with scarlet stones too impossibly large to be actual rubies. A similar gem graced her finger, a garnet, deeply red and rich. Perhaps it was real. Her green eyes were enormous, set in a porcelain face of striking features. As she seated herself on the piano bench, the rich folds of her antique gown seemed to shimmer, drenching the fabric in deeper shades of jewel-like crimson. She looked Elizabethan, the back of the dress elaborately laced, with a high-necked ruff the color of fresh blood.

Crimson Peak: The Official Movie Novelization by Nancy Holder

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In the script Thomas is 38 and Lucille is 40.

Oh wow! That old, really? That does make sense, though. Goodness, that adds even more time that they have suffered through attempting to regain the family fortune through more honest means before resorting to this con they’ve concocted. Thank you for that info!

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"We needed the house to feel like an organism," del Toro said as he took us through the three floors. "It lays down like an animal, it's decaying, and it goes slowly mad. It's sitting in the middle of a field, rotting, so we knew that the top needed to be the most weathered part of the house. The bottom, where you would receive your visitors and live, would be slightly more kept. The top is the head, and the window (in the photo above) is the eye. The people in the movie are insane, so the head is all rotted away." Del Toro paused with a smile, as he did frequently, to add, "That's where the nursery is. The nursery is fucked up."

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(the photo in question)

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so i just watched the movie again and i tried to pay more attention to the details since i wasn’t cringing away in anticipation of the horror this time.

thomas & lucille have been at this at least 10 years. i had thought perhaps lucille was around 27-28, given that in that age the average life expectancy was only around 40-45. that makes edith’s fathers age quite significant if he was to be 60 so soon (and also making edith’s age of 24 yrs quite a bit older than would be expected for marrying age.) now i would perhaps estimate something around tom hiddleston’s age--perhaps lucille is 32-33 and thomas is 30-31.

anyways, i got dates for thomas’ wives according to the dates on the envelopes

1887 - pamela upton - london?

1895 - margaret ? - edinburgh?

1896 - enola schiotti (sp?) - milan

those are all clustered in europe. note the length of time between pamela & margaret. it may have been that pamela was wealthy enough (or the sharpes still had enough capital) to sustain them for some time or else they were afraid of being caught. but they did inevitably do it again.

i am hoping to find a cam copy so i can get some stills of other things for even greater details (perhaps a date on the newspaper with the article on their mother’s death), and i am also planning to buy the novelization that is released tomorrow, especially since i do not have an exact date for the events of the movie. it may age the sharpes even further, but for now i’m estimating early 30s.

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“Every actor was given extensive biographical folders written by del Toro with information that could not be shared with their co-stars. The biographies detailed each character's backstory, even information that will never make it into the film. For example, Chastain read aloud from her personal notes for us, in which del Toro described Lucille as possessing the following traits: 

"Positives: Loyal, determined, intelligent, meticulous, decisive, observant, eloquent, artistic, passionate, sensitive, delicate, protective, unwavering; 

Negatives: Insular, narcissistic, violent, domineering, possessive, agoraphobic, germaphobic, vengeful, jealous, manipulative, depressive, demanding, suffocating. 

Secret dream: To never leave Allerdale Halle (the house); 

Likes: The smell of tobacco, the taste of very bitter chocolate." 

The information that del Toro had given her in that notebook included multiple sticky-pads, photographs, and random notes. Classified information.”

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