Daisy Edgar-Jones discusses dream role after Normal People

Daisy Edgar-Jones has said she would like to take on a role that is different to her breakout part as Marianne in Normal People so she can “keep learning”.

The actress, who rocketed to fame in the BBC adaptation of Sally Rooney’s novel joined her co-star Paul Mescal and the creative team behind the show for a virtual panel at the Edinburgh TV Festival.

She said: “I’m at work at the minute, which is really strange, on a job I did before Normal People, called War Of The Worlds, which is strangely scary because it’s all about the end of the world and that is quite close to home at the minute.

“It’s really nice to be back at work. We have both been so extremely privileged to be able to play characters like Marianne and Connell and work with directors like Lenny (Abrahamson) and Hettie (McDonald).

“So I personally would just like to find another project that has such a wonderful team attached like this one and find a character that is maybe a little bit different from anything I’ve done before, just to see how far I can learn and push myself over the next few years, because I learnt so much on this job so I would like to keep learning on the next.”

Discussing working on her Irish accent for the show, the English actress said: “That was something I was most nervous about because my mum is Irish.

“I do love working in accents because I think it’s really easy to differentiate yourself from the character if you have a different voice to her.

“There is a calmness and stillness to her voice which probably isn’t present in my own voice, which is quite flappy.”

The show has been praised for its handling of sex scenes and the production hired an intimacy co-ordinator to work with the stars and the director.

Mescal said: “I think the idea of shooting those scenes made me far more anxious than the actual shooting process from day to day.

“There is an awkward 10 minutes where you are like ‘I’m going to have to be relatively naked in front of a group of strangers’ but from an actor’s perspective you have to treat it in the same way as a scene where they are speaking to each other and get over your own ego and anxiety.”

Edgar-Jones added: “Another element I was really proud was a part of the show was the equality in nudity between Paul and I, and if you’re trying to tell the truth of a relationship you have to include the truth of what that means in terms of intimacy.”