RIDING HIGH

HOW THE ON-FIRE COOL GIRL HAS STAYED AT THE TOP, YEARS AFTER HER BREAKOUT ROLE

- Jennie Noonan

At the end of April 2020, millions of TV viewers around the world-weary from the first round of pandemic lockdowns – tuned in to watch relative unknowns Daisy Edgar-Jones and Paul Mescal play out a tumultuous affair between schoolmates turned unlikely lovers in Normal People, an adaptation of Sally Rooney’s modern love story set in Ireland.

London-based Edgar-Jones earned Golden Globe and BAFTA nominations for the role, but she found that her adjustment to fame was a slow burn, partly due to the pandemic.

“It was during COVID. It was weird. It was sort of like a simulation, the whole thing,” she said on Emma Chamberlain’s podcast, Anything Goes, in January. “I was being told that my life was changing exponentially. But in my actual life, I was just having these sort of Zoom interviews. I was on The Graham Norton Show on Zoom. You sort of turn your laptop off and be like, ‘Did that even happen?’”