COMING UP DAISIES
Normal People star gets very personal
Every so often, an actor breaks through in a debut or early role and emerges as a fully formed star. Think Keira Knightley in Bend It Like Beckham, Kate Winslet in Heavenly Creatures or Anne Hathaway in The Princess Diaries. This year, Daisy Edgar-Jones inhabits that space thanks to her mesmerising performance as the beautiful, damaged student Marianne in Normal People. But if you’ve already binged that must-see series, you can catch Daisy in her next major role from July 9 when her latest TV series War of the Worlds launches on SBS. “It’s been bonkers,” she says of overnight fame.
Normal People has become such a huge show. How are you coping with all the attention you are getting now?
It’s strange, especially doing interviews when it’s yourself and not all of the cast. It’s like, “God, I’m talking about myself for so long!” But I love the show, we all do, so it’s really fun to talk about it. With all of this madness in the world right now, we didn’t know whether we would be able to do anything, so it’s been brilliant that there’s been other forms of being able to talk about the show. We are very proud of Normal People and I’m glad I can do my part in singing its praises.
How did you get started in acting?
I have been doing it all of my life, from doing school plays and things like that. I never really knew it could be a career choice until
I was about 15 years old. My mum heard about this big company in the UK called The National Youth Theatre, which is a wonderful place. You audition and, if you get in, you get to do shows with them every summer. I got in when I was 15 and met lots of like-minded people. That’s when I was like, “Oh, this could maybe be something ...” Then, I was very lucky to get an agent and about a year into auditioning I got a job on a show called Cold Feet, which was my first acting job. That’s how I fell into all this.
Normal People is based on a book. Had you read it before the show came along?
It’s funny because my best friend is in love with Sally Rooney and everything she has ever written. So she was like, “You have to read it.” But I didn’t get around to it, and then I got through the audition ... that’s when I finally read it. It’s a very strange thing to read a book while really imagining playing the characters. It’s a strange way and wonderful way to read a story because you are really empathising with everything that they are going through.
Did you feel under pressure to live up to the novel?
Yes I did. I felt such an amount of pressure. We are so in love with those characters and such big fans of the book, so I definitely felt a lot of pressure to try and get my role right. Marianne is quite a complicated character and very nuanced. There’s a large amount of her that I really completely connect with and
“I felt such an amount of pressure” – DAISY EDGARJONES
can completely understand, but there’s also a large amount of her that I just haven’t got access to so I did feel a lot of pressure.
You and Paul Mescal have great on-screen chemistry. How did you achieve that?
Paul and I were just really lucky. For both of us, it’s very early on in our careers. It’s Paul’s first television thing and my first main part. We were very lucky to have Lenny (director Lenny Abrahamson) and all of the filmmakers, because they really gave us the space to feel we could do certain things. It’s nerve-racking when you are given a role like this so it was very lucky to discover that we love acting with each other. I think we both have a very similar dialogue when it comes to the characters. It felt natural between us quite early on, which was really good.
What did you think of all the fuss
about your steamy scenes together? [Laughs] My mum messaged me and said, “It’s a little raunchy Daisy!” And I was like, “Oh God!” It was kind of a tricky thing to watch with my boyfriend I guess but actually he was amazing. He loves the series, thank goodness. It’s so funny because I don’t know if maybe I am blind to it now or numb to it, but I am really just surprised that that’s even a thing. Those scenes just feel so brilliantly interwoven that they don’t stand out as anything raunchy. It’s just all blurring into one story. It is quite funny that people are seeing that and thinking that. I kind of love it. It’s exciting!”
Is it true that you worked with an intimacy coach for those scenes? We did. Her name is Ita O’Brien and she’s kind of the pioneer of that job. She worked on Sex Education as well. She’s wonderful. She just creates an environment that is incredibly safe and pressure free. It means that all we have to worry about is the acting. What is wonderful about those scenes is that they often come in the middle of a dialogue scene so that meant that we didn’t have to worry about the physical side. We could just think about what we were trying to narratively say with those scenes.”
How difficult was mastering the Irish accent? It wasn’t too bad. Hopefully it sounds alright [Laughs]. My mum is from the north of Ireland and I still have got family who live there. I always went back-and-forth as a young person, so I didn’t find it too hard to get into it rhythmically. Also, I think accents are so interesting. They define your character quite a lot, more than we even realise. Coming from London, my accent is naturally quite self-conscious so it’s strange the way that accents change the way you act.”
What does it mean to be playing a millennial character? It’s so funny because I do hear that a lot, I guess because the characters are from this era. But I think the kind of love and relationship they have is timeless. I think what is exciting about it is the way that they treat each other – as intellectual equals. Especially early on, Connell – the way he handles Marianne as she loses her virginity and all of that – is really grown up and really how it should be done. I think that’s quite exciting and, I guess, modern in that way. They are very much on a level playing field.” Finally, what is next for you?
I was meant to start a job but, obviously, it has been delayed. It’s definitely still going to happen, which is cool, but I don’t think I can say anything yet because it hasn’t been announced. It’s just really nice to have something to keep us going while we are waiting for all of this to pass.”
“Those scenes don’t stand out as raunchy”