Her chats to Daisy Edgar Jones ahead of the release of her new film, Where the Crawdads Sing.
The buzz around Where the Crawdads Sing has been palpable. Ever since the film adaption of the international bestseller was announced, fans of Delia Owens’ book have been dying to see Kya’s story on the big screen.
And when the incredible Daisy Edgar Jones was cast in the lead role, that only furthered our excitement even more.
The star, who is probably best known to Irish audiences for her role as Marianne on Normal People, takes on the lead role in the film, one that details a woman’s growth, her resilience as an outsider of society, and how she maintains her sense of self while the world around her struggles to do so.
Edgar Jones says that meeting producer Reese Witherspoon was, in a word, “surreal.”
“She came to visit, she was on set,” she tells Her. “It was really cool to meet her, it was actually surreal to meet her too because I’ve watched her on telly for such a long time.
“It was exciting to see her seeing the set as well because one of the days we were filming in Kya’s shack and for me, that was just lifted from my head when I read the book. It was really cool to see [Reese] see that on location.”
View this post on Instagram
Where the Crawdads Sing is a mystery story, but it’s also a coming of age tale, one that sees a young outcast navigate the surroundings she has grown to love before they are compromised by the outside world.
Edgar Jones says that she would love young girls to take something from the film – most notably, Kya’s resilience.
“It’s such an admirable quality that she has. She suffers a lot and she’s also put in a box quite a lot by people, or she’s judged by them,” she says.
“There’s a quality of being underestimated which I feel is a really female experience. Despite that fact, she proves everybody wrong and she survives and thrives in her environment, which is very hostile, not just the marsh but also the town. I think that’s amazing.
“It’s so special to be a part of a film that has that kind of complex format and also for an audience that haven’t felt confident to go back to the cinema, it’s got so much heart and soul and it’s incredible to be a part of that.”
View this post on Instagram
Where the Crawdads Sing was shot on location in New Orleans and Houma, Louisiana, as well as the surrounding areas. Over the course of filming, set images featuring the cast and Witherspoon were shared widely across social media, only further leading to the buzz the adaptation had already generated.
But it isn’t just the characters that make the film what it is, it’s the location too. And more importantly, the swamp where Kya grows up.
“It’s so beautifully captured by our Director of Photographer Polly [Morgan] and it’s such a big part of the story,” says Edgar Jones. “Kya is so enamoured with that environment and has such huge respect for it, and Polly captured it so beautifully.
“I feel very lucky to actually have filmed on location so we didn’t have to imagine it, because you could feel it and you could see nature.”
Where the Crawdads Sing is released in Ireland on July 22.
