Daisy Edgar-Jones has lost her voice. When the 26-year-old, London-born star of Twisters, Under the Banner of Heaven and Fresh, who captivated the nation alongside a then-unknown Paul Mescal in Normal People some four years ago, logs onto our Zoom call she apologies for her croakiness. It’s more than understandable: not only does she have a cold, but last night was also press night for her new play, a buzzy, refreshed production of the explosive Tennessee Williams classic Cat on a Hot Tin Roof at the Almeida Theatre. Directed by Rebecca Frecknall, it features Kingsley Ben-Adir as the troubled Brick, and Lennie James as his commanding father, Big Daddy, alongside Edgar-Jones as Brick’s sensual, frustrated wife, Maggie.
Almost feline in her movements and feral in her desires, Maggie is eager to have children with her husband, but he is distant, despondent and falling into a drunken stupor. Cue a birthday party for his formidable, swaggering father, where arguments erupt, secrets come out and dangerous new plans are hatched.
Stepping into a part immortalised by a scintillating Elizabeth Taylor in the 1958 film adaptation of the same name – and, in subsequent years, everyone from Scarlett Johansson to Sienna Miller, on stage – Edgar-Jones seems entirely unfazed. From the moment the lights come up, she is an absolute riot – loud, quippy, riotously funny and, in truth, a world away from the softly-spoken, observant loners she’s often played on screen.
“That’s exactly what I wanted,” the actor says, laughing, when I make this observation. “I love what I do, but I do often play quite passive, vulnerable, pensive characters, and Maggie is the absolute antithesis of that. She’s angry, she speaks a lot – I speak for 55 minutes straight. So, I really wanted the chance to stretch myself in that way.”
This isn’t her first time at the Almeida, either – back in 2020, she treaded the boards here for a revival of Albion starring The Crown’s Victoria Hamilton, and she’s also grown up performing in National Youth Theatre productions. In many ways, she’s seasoned – though she has found it difficult to unwind after shows. “Maggie is very stressed, so it is difficult to get calm again,” she admits. “I just try to sit and breathe and centre myself.” But, she and two of her co-stars, Clare Burt, who plays Maggie’s mother-in-law, Big Mama, and Pearl Chanda, who plays Maggie’s sister-in-law, Mae, also love “dancing to old-school musical soundtracks – Guys and Dolls, Meet Me in St Louis, you name it”.
