Daisy’s path to Hollywood glory
NOT SINCE HOUSE OF GUCCI have we been this excited about a film. Take one of the best-selling novels of all time – Delia Owens’ Where The Crawdads Sing, which has sold a whopping 12 million copies to date – put it in the hit-making hands of Reese Witherspoon and her production company, Hello Sunshine, and you’re on to a winner already. But with Daisy Edgar-jones as the lead? That’s dynamite.
Part coming-of-age-story, part murder thriller, Where The Crawdads Sing has at its heart the free-spirited Kya, a misunderstood outsider who’s grown up fending for herself in the marshes of North Carolina. Reese and her co-producer Elizabeth Gabler considered a number of established A-list names for the part but, like the rest of the world stuck at home in 2020, they were transfixed by Daisy’s beautifully understated performance in the BBC’S Normal People.
‘We’d been watching the show and were like, “Let’s go to Daisy Edgar-jones right now!”’ says Elizabeth. ‘We sent her the script on a Thursday and she auditioned on the Sunday, by which time she’d already perfected the accent. Daisy brought us all to our knees in her audition; she blew us away.’
Much like Marianne in Normal People, Kya may seem inhibited and awkward on the surface but there is an inner fire burning away. ‘Daisy can very easily drop into that very vulnerable, sensitive, shy place but then she also has this incredible grit and resilience that catches you off-guard,’ says the film’s director, Olivia Newman.
To capture the physicality of Kya, Daisy, 24, requested a movement coach ‘to help her shed her Britishness and get into that Southern marsh girl way of being’, says Olivia. Daisy did all her own stunts – including diving into the alligator-infested waters of Louisiana, which stood in for the North Carolina marshes of the novel.
Having followed up her Golden Globenominated performance in Normal People with the brilliantly quirky film Fresh – a gory, very clever take on the indignities of modern dating – Where The Crawdads Sing marks Daisy’s first foray into the mainstream movie world. Her talent is obvious (her
Fresh co-star Sebastian Stan only signed on to the film when he heard she was on-board) but she also has the stamina and steel to crack Hollywood, says Elizabeth. ‘From a studio’s standpoint, she’s a dream; she couldn’t be more hard-working. She’s in almost every scene of this movie, but she’s giving her all every single day.’
And this summer really is all about Daisy. Having spent the entirety of last year filming back-to-back, this month also sees the UK premiere of her new TV show Under The Banner Of Heaven (on Disney+ from 27 July). Co-starring Andrew Garfield, the seven-part truecrime drama centres on a brutal murder in the Mormon community in 1980s Utah, with Daisy’s ‘heartbreaking’ portrayal of real-life victim Brenda Lafferty already impressing US critics.
Normal People may have been a one-off cultural phenomenon you can’t recreate, but Daisy’s proved that her star is much bigger than a single standout show. ‘She’s one of the finest actors working today,’ agrees Olivia. ‘I can’t wait to see what she does next.’
‘Where The Crawdads Sing’ is in cinemas from 22 July