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The Possession interview where Ms Ehle talks about reading the book wasn't a figment of my imagination, after all.

Miss Paltrow seems to have been unaware of "Possession" until she encountered the screenplay, but she was a high school senior when the novel was published.

Miss Ehle recalls, "I was aware of it when it was new, yes, but I didn't read it. That's odd in a way, because I remember hearing a lot about it, and it sounded up my alley. For some reason, we missed each other until I had the script in my hands. At that point, I started reading the novel, reread the script, agreed to do the movie and finished the book." [more]