“Being a young actor is difficult when you’re starting out because unlike any other craft, it’s not like you can do it on your own terms.”
It’s a Monday morning in London when Daisy Edgar-Jones dials in from London, England. In the last week, she has celebrated her 24th birthday and seen one of her favourite artists, Michael Kiwanuka, in concert. She’s also spent plenty of quality time with family and friends and has put on one of her favourite jumpers—a knitted green number—for our chat.
Despite the normalities and perceived banalities of her 20-something life, Edgar-Jones is one of Hollywood’s biggest breakout stars. She is gearing up for the release of , a Reese Witherspoon-produced mystery film based on Delia Owens’s novel of the same name. Edgar-Jones’s character, Kya Clarke-a young girl who grows up alone in North Carolina’s vast marsh-is a steely individualist with an eye for ethology, a factor that adds to the film’s colourful and symbolic display of sea critters, insects and birds. “I would like to think I’d be an egret. They’re so graceful and gorgeous and they have long, stick-y legs. I guess I have quite long, stick-y legs,” ponders Edgar-Jones before she abruptly pauses. “I know what I am. I’m a bit of a duck. People have said I remind them of one and I have an odd walk. So I think yeah, maybe I’m a duck. But with the view of one day being an egret.”
