of four at the end of the novel. Several actresses have portrayed Natasha Rostova to critical acclaim. In 1956, Audrey Hepburn was cast as Natasha in King Vidor's War and Peace. She was nominated for a BAFTA Award for best British actress and for a Golden Globe Award for best actress in a drama production. Moreover, Harlow Robinson writes that Hepburn "makes a visually compelling Natasha...". Other performances include those of Morag Hood in the 1972 BBC miniseries with Anthony Hopkins as Pierre, Ludmila Savelyeva in Sergei Bondarchuk's adaptation, Clémence Poésy in the 2007 miniseries and Denée Benton (Phillipa Soo Off-Broadway) in the New York musical adaptation, Natasha, Pierre & The Great Comet of 1812, which received 12 Tony nominations in 2017. In the 2016 BBC One six-part drama based on the novel, Lily James played Natasha Rostova. Scholarly reception The Encyclopedia of Literature remarks that Natasha "is undoubtedly Tolstoy's ideal woman," while the Academic American Encyclopedia describes her as "the embodiment of impulsiveness and spontaneity...". The transformation of her character towards the end of the novel from a joyous, spirited 'waif-like' beauty into a plump, rather slatternly woman who is only interested in her husband and children has been criticized. Dorothea Barrett compares this to the description of a matronly Dinah Morris at the end of Adam Bede, which she calls 'inappropriate, almost humiliating'. See also List of War and Peace characters References Further reading Daniel Lattin, "Natasha Rostova vs. Anna Karenina: A Comparison of Falls from Grace" Andrew Kaufman, Oprah's Book Club, "Finding Inspiration in Tolstoy's War and Peace". Valeria Sobol, Columbia University, "Reading the Invisible: The Mind, the Body and the Medical Examiner in Lev Tolstoy's Anna Karenina" External links "Natasha Rostova (Character) from Voyna i mir (1967)," The Internet Movie Database Fictional counts and countesses Characters in War and Peace Fictional Russian people in literature Female characters in literature Literary characters introduced in 1869