That was despite her and Lord Marchmain's (Sir Michael Gambon's) own marriage being in name only, as he lived in Venice with his mistress, Cara (Greta Scacchi). But the biggest obstacle to Charles being intimately involved with anyone in the Flyte family was the family matriarch, Lady Marchmain (Dame Emma Thompson), a strict and devout Catholic who ruled the family with that adherence to a strict Catholic lifestyle. Although Charles and Sebastian were more than just friends, Charles ultimately fell in love with Sebastian's sister, Julia Flyte (Hayley Atwell). Charles ended up getting caught up in Sebastian's family struggles, where Sebastian used excessive alcohol to deal with the pain resulting from his family relationships. Charles first met Sebastian Flyte (Ben Whishaw) when they both were students at Oxford, where Sebastian surprisingly welcomed Charles into his circle of equally wealthy, somewhat stuck-up, and flamboyant friends. The locale, which is not unfamiliar to him, makes him reminisce about what ended up being his doomed relationship with Brideshead's owners, the Flytes, an ostentatiously wealthy family. He is currently an Army officer, who is stationed at a makeshift camp set up at Brideshead estate before imminently getting shipped into battle. Charles Ryder (Matthew Goode), in his civilian life, rose out of his middle class London background, which includes being an atheist and having a distant relationship with his eccentric father, to become an up and coming artist.