Where the Crawdads Sing: Daisy Edgar-Jones on wild weather, isolation and the power of nature

Mother nature doesn’t care about a production’s schedule and budgets and she certainly made her presence known on Where the Crawdads Sing.

A movie production will frequently be at the mercy of mother nature, a tempestuous mistress who has zero care about schedules or budgets.

So, it’s fitting that on Where the Crawdads Sing, mother nature was a frequent disrupter. The film, adapted by Delia Owens’ hugely popular novel, tries to capture Owens’ evocation of a place.

The North Carolina marshes are as much a character as any of the humans, and it’s the bond between it and Where the Crawdads Sing’s hero, Kya, that forms the deepest relationship in the story. Kya is the marshland.

And there was no bending the Louisiana marshlands (where the production was filmed) to the will of the filmmakers. But all the wild weather actually helped English actor Daisy Edgar-Jones connect to the world of Where the Crawdads Sing.

“You couldn’t escape the noise of that place, or the cicadas and the crazy weather we got,” Edgar-Jones told news.com.au. “You really felt the true power of nature.

“I feel like that’s something Kya really experiences so it was easy to feel quite small when you hear lightning and thunder that loud. It was really helpful to film there because it was easy to get into her mindset.”

Where the Crawdads Sing was besieged by wild weather. Picture: Sony Pictures

Edgar-Jones revealed that as much as the experience it was immersive, it was also challenging.

“We had a hundred lightning strikes and there were times when we had to cut filming and go sit in our cars until the lightning passed.

“And we had a tropical storm, which was crazy. Even when we were filming in the studio, the sound of the rain, and then the raindrops were the size of my head, were so loud that we couldn’t film. We also had a day where the set flooded.

“Nature’s not going to stop for you to make a film.”

Edgar-Jones has been acting since her teen years but it was her role in Normal People, two years earlier, that really cemented her place in the popular consciousness. Her understated, interior and moving performance in that series catapulted her to global recognition and a swag of award nominations.

Nabbing the role of Kya is a huge deal given the immense devotion inspired by Owens’ book, and the piece of advice Owens gave to Edgar-Jones was to just enjoy the whole process.

Daisy Edgar-Jones at the premiere of Where the Crawdads Sing. Picture: Angela Weiss/AFP

While the London-born and raised actor may seem like she’s worlds apart from a South Carolinian hermit who learns to raise herself in the wilds of the marsh after she’s abandoned by her family, there were aspects of the character that Edgar-Jones really connected with.

As an only child, the actor said she spent a lot of time on her as a kid – “Making my own fun and using my imagination a lot to create these big, fast worlds”.

But it was reading the book during lockdown, even in one of the most urban and populous metropolises in the world, that resonated with Edgar-Jones.

“It was a really interesting time to read the story because we were all, in varying ways, experiencing isolation in a sense. And also experiencing, on a massive scale, a hardship that was tricky and we all had to become very resilient. It’s incredible how adaptable we are as humans.

“Kya gets knocked around so much and despite that is able to overcome it and ultimately thrive.

Daisy Edgar-Jones learnt to operate a boat during filming. Picture: Sony Pictures

“It’s a large part of why I love her. She isn’t really saved by anyone, she has to figure things out for herself from such a young age. She learns to survive and she’s so strong and resilient. I found that resilience so admirable.”

The combined experience of sinking into the role of Kya and lockdown has led Edgar-Jones to a newfound appreciation of the spaces she’s in, including nature wherever she can find it.

“One of the lines [in the film] is there’s not a dark side to nature, just inventive ways to endure. Nature is about survival and it’s free of judgment, there’s no right or wrong.

“I found that aspect really interesting too, falling back in love with nature, and that was a Covid thing too. We only had one walk a day so I became very appreciative of the park that was near me as all I had to do every day was have a little gander around it.

“I became really appreciative of the wildlife around me.”

Where the Crawdads Sing is in cinemas now

Originally published as Where the Crawdads Sing: Daisy Edgar-Jones on wild weather, isolation and the power of nature