CASTLE Howard is to be forever associated with Brideshead Revisited.

Those of us who can remember Granada's 1981 television series, starring Anthony Andrews, Jeremy Irons and Diana Quick, will instantly recognise the iconic images of the North Yorkshire pile, which feature prominently again in next week's feature film release. Additional glamour – if it were needed – is supplied by Oxford and Venice, in supporting roles.

But how will the film be different from the series? What was the motivation for making another version of Evelyn Waugh's much-admired novel about the lives, loves and difficulties of the aristocratic Flyte family and their friend Charles Ryder?

Director Julian Jarrold, whose previous films include Becoming Jane, a period drama about Jane Austen's early life, admits that initially he had some reservations about the project.

"To be honest, I had to think quite long and hard about doing it, because I thought 'why do it again?' Then I read the script and went back to the book. I thought the script was very good and it has interesting resonances today." He adds that he has deliberately not watched the TV series again.

"The story here is compressed into two hours. There's a focus on the religious side of the story and the corrosive influence of religion," he says. "We are also focussing on Charles Ryder's ambitious side more, and we are not too weighed down with the whole 'decline of the aristocracy' theme.

"One could just wallow in nostalgia, but that's not what we are doing. This is partly a study of a dysfunctional family."

The two key relationships in Waugh's book are between middle-class Charles Ryder and Sebastian Flyte, and Charles and Julia, Sebastian's sister – these are very much at the centre of the film. "The relationship between Charles and Julia is sort of simmering under the surface in the first half of the film, and then explodes in the second half," says Jarrold.

"With Charles and Sebastian, we are trying to be true to the essence of Waugh," he says, referring to the depiction of the sexual side of their relationship. "In the book, it remained ambiguous: it was a beautiful friendship."

"I think there is room for different interpretations of every work of art, book, and piece of theatre," says producer Kevin Loader. "Interestingly, even though the novel was first published in 1945, there has never been a film made of it."

Bringing it to the big screen for the first time has been a challenging process for the production team. "Any adaptation of a book is going to be a selection. You have to decide what stays and what goes, but hopefully we have managed to keep everyone's favourite moments. Our selection implies a different interpretation – there's more of a balance between the Charles and Sebastian relationship and the Charles and Julia relationship.

"The TV series did it all very slowly, and since Sebastian is in the first third of the book, it felt as though there was more about that relationship." The challenge when adapting a novel into a two-hour film, as opposed to an 11-week series, is to keep the intensity of the key relationships without losing any of the detail.

"Jeremy Brock's script has distilled the material in a great way and it has a big emotional punch," says Loader. "Essentially, it's all about the individual's search for happiness and meaning in their life – and how religion can be a means to that or an obstruction."

Julia falls in love with atheist Charles, but she is destined to marry a Catholic. Sebastian rejects the rigid, austere and self-sacrificial version of Catholicism dictated by his mother, Lady Marchmain. The call of the heart and dictates of faith are set up against each other, as are fierce emotional rivalries.

The central themes of Waugh's novel are timeless and apolitical, and the film can now introduce this complex and fascinating story to a whole new generation, even though it may struggle to match the profound impact the slow-burn television series had on viewers 27 years ago.

One aspect of the new film that both Jarrold and Loader are delighted about is the fact that they have an all-British cast which includes Michael Gambon and Emma Thompson as Lord and Lady Marchmain, and rising young stars Ben Whishaw as their son Sebastian, Hayley Atwell as Julia and Matthew Goode as Charles.

"There is always pressure to cast American actors," says Jarrold. "It's a battle that sometimes you win and sometimes you lose. This time we won. It's great, because our cast instinctively understand the fabric of this world."

According to Jonathan Cake, who plays Rex Mottram, Julia's Canadian businessman husband, entering into that world was helped immeasurably by the fact that cast and crew were able to spend five weeks filming on location in the house and grounds of Castle Howard.

"There's something really extraordinary about working somewhere authentic; you don't have to force the beauty and grandeur," he says gesturing at the magnificent surroundings of the castle's Long Hall.

"There's something quite special about walking into a room where you can feel the history and the quality of everything; it's quite different from walking onto a mocked-up film set that can be knocked down in five minutes."

He says it also helped him with his characterisation. "Rex is an outsider and this isn't my world either – I really do feel nervous about touching the shiny furniture, because I might mess it up!"

Matthew Goode, who is playing Charles Ryder, agrees. "I was a bit afraid that I would feel inhibited here because it's so grand," he says. "But once we got here I was fine." Matthew had originally been interested in the part of Sebastian – partly, he says, because Charles is quite a difficult character to fathom.

"I didn't really understand him – or like him, really, but I love him now," he says. "You want to make him likeable but basically he is a deeply ambitious middle-class guy."

Matthew went back to the book and found a lot of clues about Charles' character through studying his childhood.

"His mother died when he was very young and he has a father who was unable to show him affection, so that's bound to have affected him. He's kind of living out a childhood with Sebastian and Julia."

Matthew was impressed by the story's multi-layered intensity – "there is a huge undercurrent of religion and love in every scene" – and enjoyed the rehearsal process, especially spending time working with Ben Whishaw as Sebastian.

"The first week was really great working with Ben, getting the relationship going with him. He is doing it so differently to how Anthony Andrews did it."

Kevin Loader is impressed by "the huge depth of talent" of the young actors playing the three leads, and feels that this will be one of the most fascinating aspects for audiences when the film is released.

"Ben brings a different quality to Sebastian, a different flavour to what people might expect," he says.

"Matt is good at conveying the journey that Charles makes from being a gauche innocent to someone with a destructive desire, and Hayley is phenomenal; she has an amazing ability."

When the film opens here this week, you will be able to judge for yourselves. It's the perfect opportunity to discover Brideshead for the very first time – or swoon at it all over again.

Brideshead Revisited opens in UK cinemas on Friday.