ON SWIFT HORSES Star Daisy Edgar-Jones Covers ELLE’s April 2025 Issue

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Daisy Edgar-Jones covers ELLE’s April 2025 issue, on newsstands April 1. In conversation with Douglas Greenwood, she reflects on navigating fame after her breakout role in Normal People, her deep commitment to playing complex female characters, and the lessons she’s learned about confidence, criticism, and fearlessly embracing her craft.

Edgar-Jones also opens up about working alongside Hollywood’s most beloved leading men—including Paul Mescal, Glen Powell, and Sebastian Stan—and why she’s grateful for their support. “I have worked with basically all of the internet’s boyfriends,” she says. “And I’m lucky that every actor I’ve worked with has been incredibly supportive of me being the lead. Glen, Sebastian, Paul, all of them. I think that’s why they’re so successful and so loved and so good: that they are so generous, and they really serve the story and are not serving themselves. Glen was always like, ‘What’s Kate’s journey in this? Let’s find it.’ And same with Sebastian; he was so completely invested in Noa’s journey. Paul’s like playing tennis with your best friend. I’m nervous for the point that it comes to working with someone who might not be so chill with it! Because there’s so much ego that can exist in this industry.”

She also shares her evolving perspective on impostor syndrome, why she’s stopped reading reviews, and her excitement for roles that challenge and inspire her, including her latest film, On Swift Horses. Plus, she addresses fan reactions to Twisters, the lasting impact of Where the Crawdads Sing, and why she’s learning to let go of external validation: “You can’t control how people respond. You can only do something with goodwill and to learn something from it yourself.”

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Daisy on navigating fame with Normal People co-star Paul Mescal: Her co-star Mescal remains one of Edgar-Jones’s real-life best friends. Together they weathered the strange half-in, half-out pandemic fame, being stalked by paparazzi every time they left the house. It happens to this day—though, she jokes, “never when I’m dressed really nicely and I’ve done my makeup well. I promise you, it’s only when I wear Birkenstocks and socks or pop out for some milk. I see photos of myself online and go, ‘Da** it.’”

Daisy on her breakout role in Normal People and whether she’s tired of talking about it: Today, Normal People continues to dominate much of Edgar-Jones’s narrative. I wonder if there is a part of her that is weary of talking about it, and she laughs a little. “It isn’t that I’m bored of talking about it, because I am so proud of it,” she says. “I want to find something that connects like that again. I still can’t comprehend how widely it reached. Five years on, I’m older now, and I’m keen to talk about other things, too.”

Daisy on working with Hollywood’s “internet boyfriends” and the importance of supportive co-stars: “I have worked with basically all of the internet’s boyfriends,” she says. “And I’m lucky that every actor I’ve worked with has been incredibly supportive of me being the lead. Glen, Sebastian, Paul, all of them. I think that’s why they’re so successful and so loved and so good: that they are so generous, and they really serve the story and are not serving themselves. Glen was always like, ‘What’s Kate’s journey in this? Let’s find it.’ And same with Sebastian; he was so completely invested in Noa’s journey. Paul’s like playing tennis with your best friend. I’m nervous for the point that it comes to working with someone who might not be so chill with it! Because there’s so much ego that can exist in this industry.”

Daisy on finding complex, fully realized female roles: “It’s great that more and more stories are being made with women front and center. It’s also an interesting thing, being a woman in your 20s, wanting to find characters who are not always ingenues,” Edgar-Jones says. “You want to find characters with agency. I want every character I play to be complicated and deep and have layers to them, because that’s what it is to be human. I feel lucky that a lot of the characters I’ve played have had that. They aren’t defined by their actions or their experiences, or by the men in their life. Like with Kate in Twisters, I know there was a big uproar that there wasn’t a kiss at the end. But she went on a journey in that film that was bigger than a romantic journey.”

Daisy on overcoming impostor syndrome and self-doubt: “I remember when Normal People first came out and I was being interviewed loads, I talked so much about experiencing impostor syndrome,” she says. “I really thought it would go away, and it hasn’t. But I’m working on it. I don’t want that fear of not being good enough to ruin my life.” She says she reads reviews of her work “all the time.” It was Frecknall [Rebecca Frecknall, who directed her in Cat in a Hot Tin Roof] who encouraged her to stop reading what people, critics specifically, think of her. “That’s just been a big learning curve for me,” she says. “I didn’t realize I have a fear of getting things wrong, or failing, or embarrassing myself, you know? All those things that come with life, but also with the job I do, because it’s so public. I experienced a lucky and big trajectory in my early 20s, but it meant that my period of learning has been in front of people. I’m growing and getting better but also sometimes getting it wrong, and I find that hard at times.”

Daisy on letting go of perfectionism and focusing on the work: “Of course, I want to make things that connect, and I want to make things that are critically acclaimed, but I also want to be brave and fearlessly approach my work,” she says. “You can’t do that if you’re too worried about whether something’s good or bad. You can only connect with whether you find something truthful, and if it speaks to you, then give it your all. I want to stop being concerned about anything other than what’s in front of me.”

Daisy on Where the Crawdads Sing and learning to embrace audience reactions: She has learned quickly, but she’s also had to unlearn much of what her brain tells her to think about how Daisy Edgar-Jones, the movie star, is seen. She knows she can’t please everybody, that some of her projects haven’t been showered with the same praise that Normal People was. “Where the Crawdads Sing didn’t get great reviews, but it’s been the thing that most people come up to say they loved,” she says. “For some people, it’s their favorite film. How amazing is that? And I had the best time, and I think it’s a great film. Art is so subjective, and you can’t control how people respond. You can only do something with goodwill and to learn something from it yourself, I suppose. And then how people respond is because of their context and what they need.”

Story by: Douglas Greenwood
Photographs by: Dan Martensen
Styling by: Clare Richardson
Hair: Cim Mahony
Makeup: Florrie White
Manicure: Jenni Draper

[Photo Credit: Dan Martensen/ELLE Magazine]

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