Summer Preview: Daisy Edgar-Jones takes on ‘Crawdads’

Good things seem to happen to Daisy Edgar-Jones while she’s busy doing something else. Her breakout role as Marianne in the popular Hulu miniseries “Normal People” came about while she was on another production. She read the book in between takes and filmed her audition on set.

Several years later, she was on that same set when she found out that she had a shot at starring in the big screen adaptation of Delia Owens’ “Where the Crawdads Sing “(in theaters July 15).

“It was so wild to me that they were thinking of me for it,” Edgar-Jones said last week from London. “I think I was surprised to be in consideration considering the popularity of the book and just how important it was.”

“Where the Crawdads Sing” is about a girl named Kya who grows up alone in the marshes of North Carolina after her family abandons her. The story follows Kya from her childhood in the 1950s to adulthood as she navigates romances, ostracization from the townspeople — which only intensifies when one of her suitors is found dead and she’s brought to court — and finding her own path and purpose.

Written by a debut novelist, a retired scientist in her 70s, “Where the Crawdads Sing” became an unlikely phenomenon thanks at least in part to actor Reese Witherspoon, who selected it for her book club in 2018. Witherspoon and longtime film executive Elizabeth Gabler, who has been behind adaptations from “The Devil Wears Prada” to “Hidden Figures,” acquired the rights to produce a feature film for Sony Pictures. Since coming out in 2018, “Where the Crawdads Sing” has sold over 12 million copies and spent 150 weeks on the best seller list.

Edgar- Jones read the book in a day and was captivated.

“It’s a thriller. It’s a courtroom drama. It’s a survival story. It’s a love story. It’s a love letter to nature. It’s so many things,” Edgar-Jones said. “Something I really took away from it is a newfound appreciation for the wild and how much kindness can affect somebody’s life. Kya is taught to read by Tate and that’s a real turning point in her life, it means she’s able to make a life for herself. In a subtle way, you know, it does really sort of celebrate education.”