How Daisy Edgar-Jones went from dowdy ‘geek’ to Vogue’s It Girl – as she reveals huge regret after Normal People success
WITH two Golden Globe nominations under her belt and a blockbuster hit in cinemas, Daisy Edgar-Jones has had more success in the past four years than most actors enjoy in their entire career.
Not bad, considering the British actress was a virtual unknown before being catapulted to fame thanks to her her debut lead role in BBC lockdown smash-hit Normal People, alongside Paul Mescal.
Now the London-born star has stirred up a storm at the box office, with summer blockbuster Twisters having the biggest debut weekend for a disaster movie EVER in the US — widely exceeding expectations and pulling in £62million.
The film, directed by Lee Isaac Chung, sees Daisy starring opposite Hollywood’s man-of-the-moment, Top Gun: Maverick star Glen Powell.
And now her global icon status has been cemented after fashion bible Vogue dubbed 26-year-old Daisy Hollywood’s ultimate It Girl.
The world’s top designers are falling over themselves to dress her, with Daisy being snapped in as many as four different outfits a day as she busily promotes the film.
Her high-fashion looks, including a thigh-skimming mini dress with sweetheart neckline and a boho-ruffled maxi dress, are a world away from the cutesy puff-sleeved floral frocks she favoured on the red carpet and the “old, mangy shirt” she wore for promo interviews during the early days of her career.
‘More confident’
Normal People was watched by 63million people and had the nation hooked when it aired at the height of the pandemic — which also meant Daisy’s first taste of promo work was done virtually.
Speaking about navigating her newfound fame, she has said: “I was like, ‘Yeah, I’ll just wear this old, mangy shirt. I just had no concept!”
And speaking more recently, she admitted: “I wish I could tell my younger self, who just wore any old thing from the wardrobe on Zoom, that those pictures would be on the internet forever.
“I really love dressing up, I love fashion and playing around with style, and I think I am becoming more and more confident with pushing it but still feeling like myself.”
Despite her jam-packed schedule, the Brit beauty has still managed to find time to squeeze in some fun.
She recently told of an experience with her best friend Nancy, saying: “I went to Amsterdam to try weed for the first time.
“I was super-convinced it was good for me because of a Vice documentary about Californian nuns smoking it.
“They handed this menu over to us at one of the cafes and I remember there was one — it had some mental name. And it had four different strains of weed.”
Daisy said of the experience: “We were p***ing ourselves laughing for ages and ages and I wet myself.”
The actress was born in Islington, North London, and grew up in the world of entertainment.
Her dad Phil is head of entertainment at Sky TV while her mum Wendy is a former film editor.
She has said that it was playing King Henry VIII’s second wife Anne Boleyn in a primary school play that gave her the acting bug, and she went on to train with the National Youth Theatre from the age of 14 before landing her first professional job at 17, appearing in a Christmas special of BBC sitcom Outnumbered.
Daisy then joined the cast of Cold Feet as Olivia, the on-screen daughter of actress Hermione Norris.
She has revealed that after getting rejected for one acting job in early 2019, she decided to get her now famous choppy fringe cut in, crediting her much-imitated new hairstyle as some sort of lucky charm, because shortly afterwards she landed the part of bookish Marianne in raunchy drama Normal People, an adaptation of the best-selling Sally Rooney novel.
Daisy said in 2021: “It’s so funny, because my fringe came from . . . not getting a part I really wanted.
“I was so sad, and I was like, ‘Right, I’m gonna do a change. I’m just gonna chop off all the front bits of my hair.’
I really love dressing up, I love fashion and playing around with style
Daisy
“And then after that I got a job, so I do owe a lot of my career to — I seem to only be able to act if you can only see a partial amount of my face.”
The role earned her a Bafta and Golden Globe nomination. Yet she was completely unprepared for the overnight fame the 2020 series brought, saying: “The next day, I was on the front of a newspaper, papped for the first time.
“I remember going, ‘What? That’s me! I wish I’d worn a better outfit.’”
However, her emerging effortless style came to British Vogue’s attention, with her appearing on the magazine’s list of most influential women that year.
Since then, she has barely been out of work.
In 2022, she played the lead in the Hulu series Under The Banner Of Heaven alongside Andrew Garfield, about a real-life murder inquiry in America’s fundamentalist Mormon community, with it landing her another Golden Globe nomination.
On the silver screen, Daisy has appeared in films including the 2018 coming-of-age feature Pond Life and 2022 dark comedy-thriller Fresh before taking the lead role in a major 2022 hit, Where The Crawdads Sing.
But she is now starring in her biggest role to date, in the storm-chasing action blockbuster Twisters, a standalone sequel to the 1996 blockbuster Twister.
The actress recently switched stylists and is now working with Dani Michelle, who is behind the wardrobes of A-listers Rosie Huntington-Whiteley, Hailey Bieber and Kendall Jenner.
‘I have a weird run’
Daisy wore a custom Vivienne Westwood chestnut brown and black silk chiffon dress at the film’s premiere in London’s West End.
She has said: “Sometimes in photoshoots, I can feel a little shy.
“I’m not a model, and I never was someone who took photos of themselves. I hated getting my school photo taken but I’m starting to enjoy it more.”
Daisy had to undertake special training for the stunts in Twisters, including how to run properly.
She explained: “I’m not good at running, like I have a weird run, which I was told as a kid.
Sometimes in photoshoots, I can feel a little shy
Daisy
“And for me, that was a big stunt — to try to make it look not- pathetic. I did running lessons — isn’t that crazy?
“Actually, Paul Mescal and I were laughing about it, because he was training for Gladiator II and I was training for Twisters, and obviously he had to be huge and I was like, ‘Don’t worry, I’m going to be right up there with you’.”
The two rising stars have forged a strong bond since starring alongside each other in Normal People, with Daisy saying: “Paul is one of my lifetime best friends. He’s an incredibly grounded person.”
They were spotted having a blast in the crowds at Glastonbury last month.
Daisy says she prefers London to Hollywood and has reportedly splashed out almost £1million on her first property, a maisonette in an Edwardian terrace not far from her family home.
She has been snapped enjoying a pint of Guinness in a London beer garden after getting a taste for it while filming Normal People in Dublin.
Daisy, who has been quietly dating photographer Ben Seed since last year, is set to star in upcoming sweeping drama On Swift Horses, opposite Euphoria heart-throb Jacob Elordi.
And while her wardrobe might be a revolving door of changing designer outfits, it is unlikely she will change her hairstyle any time soon if she still wants to keep bagging those big roles.
She said: “My fringe has good vibes.”
I ALWAYS feel a moment of pride when one of our home-grown stars appears on a giant cinema screen and delivers their lines in an flawless American accent.
It means our tiny little island has, once again, beaten the best of Hollywood in the acting stakes.
Daisy Edgar-Jones has now, at the tender age of 26, had the lead in two American blockbusters – Where The Crawdads Sing (2022) and the blockbuster of this summer, Twisters, left – both times playing an American character.
She’s getting gigs that could be made for actual born-and-bred US superstars such as Emma Stone, Zendaya or Jennifer Lawrence.
This is always something we should celebrate.
Us Brits winning against the Yanks at their own game is a thing of beauty on the big screen.
By Dulcie Pearce, Sun Film Critic