Daisy Edgar-JonesIllustration by João Fazenda
Like many British actors, Daisy Edgar-Jones, twenty-two, has appeared in period pieces—“Gentleman Jack,” on the BBC, in which she plays a wide-eyed innocent in a huge bonnet, who, as Edgar-Jones put it, gets “a little bit infatuated” with the lead “and then is never seen again,” and “Pond Life,” an indie film set in the nineties, in which “one of the characters is listening to a Walkman.” But she’s best known for more Zeitgeisty material: her breakout role, this year, in the Emmy-nominated BBC and Hulu adaptation of Sally Rooney’s novel “Normal People,” set in County Sligo and Dublin, in which Edgar-Jones stars as Marianne, a prickly high-school outcast who falls in love with Connell (Paul Mescal), a kindly jock in a chain necklace so iconic that, in real life, it has its own Instagram account (@connellschain).
“Normal People,” in normal times, would likely have found an eager audience, as Rooney’s best-selling novel did; in the quarantine era, it arrived with uncanny power. “It’s quite hard to watch things now and not be very aware of people’s closeness,” Edgar-Jones said. “When they shake hands or embrace, you think, Oh, gosh. It’s strange—things are so different now.” On a Zoom from her flat in North London, Edgar-Jones wore a green blouse and big earrings; a bun accentuated prominent, Marianne-like bangs. She sat in front of a gray closet door, in a bedroom decorated with a cloud mural and a painting of two nattily dressed crocodiles. “I think what ‘Normal People’ really does celebrate is human connection and intimacy, and that is something we’re all hyper-aware of craving,” she said. Marianne encourages Connell to go to Trinity College, and to become a writer; Connell encourages Marianne to love and to be loved. The series takes an unhurried approach to the intricacies of human connection, from casual nudity to thoughtful conversation; the camera lingers on a hand or a moment, as if the viewer were hanging out with the characters in real time.
Edgar-Jones had the uncommon experience of becoming famous overnight while being unable to leave her house, doing interviews and virtual appearances in front of the gray closet door, in the flat she shares with her boyfriend and two friends. Her life is otherwise that of a conventional twentysomething. “My flatmates and I have played a lot of board games,” she said. “We find karaoke songs on YouTube and sing them. We’ve, like, learned a lot of TikTok dances.” She grew up in North London, the only child of a Scottish entertainment-executive father and a Northern Irish film-editor mother; she and her mother would speak in different accents together for fun. She attended a small girls’ school and joined the National Youth Theatre at fourteen. (“I did a Juliet speech for my audition,” she said. In school, studying Shakespeare, “we had to watch the Baz Luhrmann ‘Romeo + Juliet,’ and I fell in love with Claire Danes’s performance.”) At seventeen, she was cast in a revival of “Cold Feet,” a “Friends”-like British sitcom, where she learned more about comic timing. “And with ‘Normal People’”—not a comedy—“the dynamic between Connell and Marianne was so much about timing and beats,” she said. “Letting things sit, choosing when to come back in, allowing an actor to take the time they needed. That was a core part of the process.”
Before auditioning for the show, she hadn’t read “Normal People.” “My friend had bought it for my flatmate and was, like, ‘It’s my favorite book ever.’ She’s actually writing her dissertation on Sally Rooney now.” Then, she said, “I read it in a day. I loved it so much. I’ve always loved romances.” She was drawn to Rooney’s evocation of her characters’ inner lives. “They are both incredibly complex and flawed. Sally doesn’t shy away from the darker sides. Often, you get quite a lighthearted version of young love and growing up.”
Her other favorite romances aren’t so lighthearted, either. “Obviously, ‘Romeo and Juliet,’” she said. There’s also “The Hunger Games,” she added, and laughed. “It’s got love elements. Oh, and Patti Smith’s ‘Just Kids’—kind of a love story between her and Robert Mapplethorpe.” She went on, “I want to write down every writer she references and read their books, go look at all the art, listen to those records.... The way she talks about the Chelsea Hotel—walking down the corridor and looking through the door and there’s Hendrix. I wonder if we have an equivalent.”
Smith’s book was popular on the set of “Normal People.” Mescal is a fan, too. “I lent it to him and he read it,” Edgar-Jones said. Her other current series is an adaptation of another book: H.G. Wells’s “The War of the Worlds.” In the show, she plays a blind earthling coping with an alien invasion. Are there other literary adaptations she admires? “I’d love to see them adapt Patti Smith, actually,” she said. Perhaps she and Mescal could star? Edgar-Jones reeled a bit. “I don’t think I’m cool enough to be Patti Smith!” she said, laughing. “I wish! Oh, my God.”♦
