'Where the Crawdads Sing' 's'' Daisy Edgar-Jones Gushes Over Reese Witherspoon, Eating Shrimp and Grits

Mar. 15, 2025

Daisy Edgar-Joneslaunched into the spotlight with the earlypandemic hit seriesNormal People. She’s gone to star in thethrillerFreshand now leads the big screen adaptation ofDelia Owens' bestsellerWhere the Crawdads Sing. Still, Edgar-Jones, 24, isn’t accustomed to all of the attention.

“I’m not used to getting my photo taken,” the British actress tells PEOPLE in this week’s issue.

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To be fair, the height of Edgar-Jones’s fame so far has taken place during the pandemic, when she could really only gauge her projects' popularity online. “When the show initially came out, the sort of oddness of that was mixed up in the oddness of going out,” she says ofNormal People, the BBC’s most-streamed series of 2020. “But it’s really lovely to hear how much that show meant to certain people during that time.”

Daisy Edgar-Jones inWhere the Crawdads Sing(2022).Courtesy of Sony Pictures

Edgar-Jones landed her role asCrawdads' Kya, a loner who grows up on the North Carolina marsh in the 1950s, via Zoom. “I got a call from my agents and they were like, ‘Oh my gosh, this is huge,'” Edgar-Jones, who also starred inFX’sUnder the Banner of Heaventhis year, recalls. “I had a Zoom audition, and I had not had one of those so it was sort of surreal. I was auditioning with [director] Livy [Newman], but she was on my laptop screen, balanced on a load of pillows.”

Despite the makeshift setup, Edgar-Jones got the job because Owens thought she embodied Kya. “They sent me Daisy Edgar-Jones doing the audition and I couldn’t believe it. I was seeing Kya.” Owens, 73, says. “Then when I met her, there was Kya. She’s perfect.”

Edgar-Jones headed to Louisiana to film and met executive producerReese Witherspoon,who named Owens’ debut novel as her September 2018 book club pick. “I’ve been a huge fan of hers since I was little,” Edgar-Jones gushes of Witherspoon, 46. “To meet her and work with her was such a dream come true.”

Jon Kopaloff/WireImage

Edgar-Jones enjoyed the challenge of swapping her British accent for a Southern twang (she employed a dialect coach for help) and exploring the American South for the first time. “It was incredible to see this Spanish Moss and hear the cicadas and dragonflies everywhere. I’d never been in an environment like that,” she says. “And I would have shrimp and grits quite a lot for dinner, which I really liked.”

RELATED VIDEO: HowNormal PeoplePulled Off Those “Incredibly Intimate” Scenes with Stars Paul Mescal and Daisy Edgar-Jones

Edgar-Jones considers the beach back home in Kent her favorite place. “It’s a bit pebbly, so it’s not the most relaxing to lie down on, but I love it,” she says.

She also liked acting as a kid. “I was quite shy I guess, so acting was a chance to be able to slightly depart from myself and do things that me myself would be too shy to do, as a character,” Edgar-Jones says.

Courtesy of Sony Pictures

Edgar-Jones loves that everyone will be able to watch her latest project on the big screen. “It’s a murder mystery. It’s a love story. It’s a survival story. It the kind of movie I would love to go and see with my friends and I’m just really chuffed that it’s getting a cinema release,” Edgar-Jones says ofCrawdads.

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Going forward, Edgar-Jones wants to “work with filmmakers that challenge me” — she adoresWes Anderson,Greta GerwigandQuentin Tarantino. But she doesn’t want to get too caught up in the process: “If you’re too worried about the outcome, you won’t be free to make bold choices.”

Where the Crawdads Singis in theaters now.

source: people.com