Daisy Edgar-Jones on taking the lead in hyped bestseller-to-film adaptation Where the Crawdads Sing

Submerged in an alligator-infested swamp in Louisiana, English actor Daisy Edgar-Jones was half a world away from her life in London while shooting the hotly anticipated big screen adaptation of Delia Owens’ best-selling novel, Where the Crawdads Sing.

So, the first revelation of her interview with PLAY is understandable.

“I actually didn’t know what a crawdad was (before I auditioned for this part),” she laughs.

For those who don’t know, a crawdad or crawfish is what you’d call a freshwater crustacean if you lived west of America’s Appalachian Mountains, in places such as North Carolina, where Owens’ book is set.

Here in WA you might call one a yabby or gilgie, and, if you’re lucky enough, you’ll know first-hand how delicious they are.

“I’ve eaten quite a few now, and they’re really tasty,” Edgar-Jones agrees.

“Although they take so long to sort of get out of their shell, and I’m not very patient, so I need to eat them with someone who does the peeling.”

While it would certainly be possible to devote the next 1000 words or so to the morphology of crawdads and remain vaguely true to the spirit of Owen’s work — she was a naturalist in Africa for decades before Crawdads was released in 2018 — the crustaceans have limited relevance to the film, despite their prominence in the title.

Instead, the film, like the book, offers a decidedly To-Kill-A-Mockingbird-ish tale of small-town discrimination, wrapped up in a murder mystery.

The historic Louisiana town of Houma, about an hour south-west of New Orleans, was ideally suited to stand in for the book’s fictitious setting of Barkley Cove, a swampy hamlet in 1950s America.

At the centre of the story is Kya, a resourceful but uneducated girl, whose humble upbringing in the marshlands generates distrust with residents of the nearby town, who see her as “that marsh girl”.

This unfounded reputation comes back to bite her after the death of the local heartthrob and former high school quarterback, Chase (Harris Dickinson), because the town quickly decides an outsider like Kya must be behind his murder.

The trial that follows, interrupted in the film by numerous flashbacks, is the chief source of the Mockingbird vibes, with lawyer Tom Milton (played by Oscar nominee David Strathairn) serving as a reasonable facsimile of Atticus Finch, while Kya is both Scout and the accused, Tom Robinson, with a hint of Boo Radley, too.

For Edgar-Jones, who had a recurring role as a teenager in later seasons of Cold Feet but really came to our attention playing Marianne in the psychological romantic drama Normal People, the role of Kya is evidence of her growing standing in the industry.

However, for many, she is still relatively unknown, which you could argue is canny casting for a movie based on a book that topped the New York Times bestseller list in 2019 and 2020.

Millions of readers have already crafted an idea of Kya in their imagination, and casting a Millie Bobby Brown or Shailene Woodley might have been jarring.

It’s something Edgar-Jones is well aware of, because that was the key to how she crafted the character herself.

“She’s so well rendered on the page that I feel like the reason that she resonates with so many people is there’s kind of a little bit of Kya in all of us,” the actor says.

“And then I was reading Lucy Alibar’s screenplay, which was so, so beautiful, and it offered a slightly different angle in on the character, but they were both incredibly similar and complemented each other.”

Alibar, by the way, was the Academy Award-nominated co-writer of the 2012 fantasy-drama Beasts of the Southern Wild, and, though this Crawdads adaptation doesn’t have that earlier film’s magic realism, it shares a similar obsession with nature.

Edgar-Jones got more than her share of said nature as Kya, especially when some scenes called for her to swim in the aforementioned alligator-infested bayou.

“I didn’t think I was that aware of it at the time, but now I don’t think I could do it again,” she laughs.

Despite her protestations, you get the feeling Edgar-Jones would absolutely do it again if it was required to make this movie.

She’s so well rendered on the page that I feel like the reason that she resonates with so many people is there’s kind of a little bit of Kya in all of us.

Part of that is professionalism, to be sure, but there’s another motivation here that is intrinsically linked to how this project came about.

Oscar-winner Reese Witherspoon optioned Owen’s book at the manuscript stage under the auspices of her Hello Sunshine production company.

From there, Witherspoon constructed a film-making team that was almost exclusively women, including director Olivia Newman, and, in a rarity for the industry, a crew that was majority female, too.

To be a part of that, and in the orbit of a fellow actor who has built a billion-dollar production company in what remains a male-dominated industry, was a special thing, says Edgar-Jones.

“I think that Reese is so inspiring,” she says.

“She’s built this production company that really puts women in central roles, both in front of the camera and behind … I think it’s just really important that we see that more and more.”

Edgar-Jones believes audiences will see the result of this on-screen in a way that transcends the concept of the so-called “female gaze”.

“It’s a shared experience, perhaps that we were able to relate to, and that we can relate to in Kya, who is a very underestimated character because of her gender, which I think is quite a female experience,” the actor explains.

“And then, also, I think there was just a sensitivity to her story that we were able to sort of access through that shared experience, and there’s a story about female empowerment, so to have women feel empowered on our set was really important.”

At one point in the story, Kya finds herself in a love triangle that includes college boy Tate (Taylor John Smith), but the character seems doomed to love men who don’t love her as she deserves.

When it’s pointed out Edgar-Jones keeps landing roles where guys want to keep the relationship secret, a la Normal People, she can’t suppress a giggle.

“That tickled me,” she admits. “I need to do a light comedy next.”

On the topic of Normal People, which you really should check out, Edgar-Jones says working on the series “meant the world” to her.

“That job means so much to me and in so many ways, professionally and personally, and it was my first time playing a lead, and all of my best friends were from that job,” she says.

“And it really truly was a magical filming experience, so I will always be grateful.”

When it comes to Where the Crawdads Sing, this British actor on the rise hopes fans of the book will be grateful their beloved source material was appropriately honoured by the film.

“I hope those who have read it have the same feeling, ultimately, that they were left with when they put the book down, which I think we’ve done a really good job of capturing the tone and the feeling of the story,” Edgar-Jones begins.

“And then, for those who haven’t read the book, I think this is a story about a young woman’s survival against all odds, and there are many aspects of Kya that are very sort of admirable and inspiring.

“So, I hope people see that kindness can go a really long way in ultimately affecting someone’s life for the better.”

Where the Crawdads Sing is in cinemas on Thursday.