Long before she stepped into the shoes of Marianne Sheridan, Daisy Edgar-Jones was cutting her teeth in Gentleman Jack. The hit BBC show starred Suranne Jones as real-life 19th century landowner and trailblazer Anne Lister, who is often referred to as the ‘first modern lesbian’.

Edgar-Jones made a brief appearance in the show’s first season, playing Delia Rawson, a young woman who was friends with Ann Walker (Sophie Rundle), Anne Lister’s partner. It was a small part, but Edgar-Jones gave a quietly assured performance.

In 2019, Daisy Edgar-Jones was cast in War Of The Worlds, a French-English series produced by Canal+. She took on the role of Emily Gresham, a blind young woman who develops a strange supernatural connection with the aliens who have invaded Earth.

“I wanted to do it justice and to be sensitive to [her condition], so I worked with a lovely lady for a week and we explored lots of different aspects of it,” she said in an interview. “We were keen to make sure Emily wasn’t hindered by her visual impairment, but that it was something she embraced and it made her who she was.”

Shortly before Normal People exploded onto our screens, Edgar-Jones starred in Albion, a Mike Bartlett play, at London’s Almeida theatre. As Zara, she was a bold, opinionated young woman and an aspiring writer in a slump. The play was later filmed and streamed on BBC iPlayer.

Edgar-Jones won our hearts as Marianne in Normal People, and honestly, we’re still not over it. Her portrayal of Marianne’s coming-of-age journey was layered and mesmerising. Her chemistry with Mescal was nothing short of electric and the heartbreaking final scene is burned onto our brains.

In fact, the only possible complaint you could have about her performance is that it convinced you to get a very ill-advised lockdown fringe.

After Normal People, Edgar-Jones took the leap across the pond to star in Where The Crawdads Sing, another adaptation of a beloved book. Like Marianne, Kya was an awkward outcast who finds her footing and her power over the course of the story. The film had its flaws, but she gave a gutsy, self-assured performance as this ‘Marsh girl’ and proved that she is more than capable of leading a Hollywood blockbuster.

Next came Under The Banner Of Heaven, an Andrew Garfield crime miniseries that once again saw Edgar-Jones taking her American accent out for a spin. She played the real-life figure Brenda Lafferty, a confident broadcast journalist who was murdered in her home with her infant daughter in 1984. 

For Edgar-Jones, this was her most important role to date. It was also the role that made her passionate about advocating for strong female characters. She wanted her performance to “celebrate her life and for her to have a voice”. Speaking to The Hollywood Reporter, she added: “I learned how important it is and how little we see on-screen women sort of helping other women. Instead of sort of tearing each other down or poking holes in each other, actually supporting and bringing each other up, and that kind of community, I think that was a real sort of learning thing and something that I now in my next projects would want to seek to sort of make sure to always tell.”

It was high time Daisy Edgar-Jones sunk her teeth into an indie horror and with Fresh, that’s exactly what she did. The truly bonkers romance-horror flick sees Edgar-Jones playing Noa, a young woman who finds herself falling for a cannibal. Finally, we got to see her really weird side. 

“Noa feels like a very different character to Marianne. Most of my work prior to Normal People was in small guest roles in comedy series, so comedy is something I enjoy acting in,” she said to Digital Spy of the role. “Fresh has a lot of humour and wit in it which I really enjoyed being able to get back to. I’m really excited for people to see the new work and as an actor, it’s so fun to really change and transform. The hope is that I brought something different to each character.”

Fast forward to today and Edgar-Jones is the windswept leading lady of one of the biggest films of the summer. 

The movie may be big and bold, but as Kate the meteorologist, Edgar-Jones once again delivers a thoughtful performance with layers of quiet depth. As she said to the BBC, “I think my characters tend to be, and have been historically, quite introspective. Or characters who have a complex inner life, who are dealing with things that are heavy and emotional.”

What is next for Edgar-Jones? Perhaps more fascinating character studies along with a few more genre flicks. As she put it to Who What Wear: “I tend to prefer things that are character driven and quite insular, but I also want to feel like I can play in every sandbox and look back at a career and go, ‘Look at all the random, cool stuff I’ve done!’”