Star of steamy new BBC drama who won’t be a Normal Person for long...
WITH her wide smile and grownout fringe, you’d be forgiven for mistaking her for the star of a previous Sally Rooney adaptation.
And soon Alison Oliver may well be the next Daisy Edgar-Jones – thrust into the limelight with her first lead role in the BBC’s Conversations with Friends.
Like Normal People’s Miss EdgarJones, the actress, 24, was relatively unknown when she was cast as Frances in the new TV version of the Irish author’s first novel, which starts on Sunday.
She will hope to emulate the success of her 23-year-old predecessor, who starred in BBC Three’s Normal People – a lockdown hit in April 2020 – before going on to land film roles.
And Miss Oliver has been seeking her advice, along with warm words from Normal People’s male star Paul Mescal.
Miss Oliver, who grew up in Cork and went to the same drama school as Mescal, revealed this week that he got in touch with her after she landed the role.
‘I knew Paul a little bit from college and he was so lovely in getting in touch and I think it’s really nice to have that contact across the shows because it is quite a similar thing,’ she told BBC’s The One Show.
Miss Oliver has also chatted to Miss Edgar-Jones about the part. ‘We are all part of the Rooneyverse, so there is a camaraderie,’ she told The Sunday Times. ‘They told me to just enjoy it.’
The 12-part series tells the story of Dublin college students Frances and Bobbi, played by US actress Sasha Lane, and their unexpected connection with married couple Nick, played by Taylor Swift’s boyfriend Joe Alwyn, and Melissa, played by Sex Education’s Jemima Kirke.
There are several sex scenes between Miss Oliver’s character and Alwyn’s Nick – and Miss Oliver revealed she has even spoken to US singer Miss Swift about those intimate scenes.
Conversations with Friends is on BBC Three and BBC iPlayer.