Paul Mescal and Daisy Edgar-Jones are the heart ofNormal Peoples sexy, angsty romance.
And now theyre famous.
Save this article to read it later.
Find this story in your accountsSaved for Latersection.
Normal Peoplestars Daisy Edgar-Jones and Paul Mescal have found themselves in a strange limbo.
This week,Normal Peoplepremiered internationally to a slew ofpositive reviews.
The surreal nature of their situation hasnt escaped them.
Its very hard to compute that it is actually happening.
Especially because I cant even go and see my mom and dad and talk about it properly.
We can hang for a minute while we wait for Paul.Daisy Edgar-Jones:Im just messing with my fringe.
Its a good look!DEJ:It does work quite well for aging me in the show.
I have a very tiny fringe for early Marianne, and then it gets really long later.
What sort of fashion and makeup changes did you undergo?DEJ:I know, its amazing.
Early Marianne, it would be just concealer.
For later Marianne, it was the eyeliner and the eye shadow and a bit more fun.
That was like four or five weeks ago.
Its a bit mad.
All I can think about is the coronavirus.
Though its quite nice, I guess, to have a distraction, because its quite a nice show.
Even though it does go to quite dark places, on the whole its quite lively.
I think thats the kind of TV that were after at the minute.
I cant handle anything too heavy or dark because Im just anxious.
[Paul Mescal enters the Zoom holding a mug, sitting on his couch.]
Daisy was just talking about how it feels strange to talk aboutNormal Peoplewith everything thats happening in the world.
But I was about to say that I think people need art and distraction right now.PM:Totally.
It does feel …futileisnt the word.
But people do need some degree of respite from it.
Hopefully this will give them that.
It did for me!
You two have such strong chemistry in the show.
Was it like that when you first auditioned?
She was just absolutely brilliant.
We literally went straight into scenes.
I think hed had loads of chemistry reads.
Paul, you went for a cigarette, didnt you?
And I just strung together some words.
I had no banter at all because I was so nervous.
I have no idea what we talked about.
PM:Absolute blur.
DEJ:[Imitating herself] Love the character!
PM:Probably very polite.
It would be very on-brand.
He was like, Okay, I promise Ill tell you tomorrow.
Because in my head, I was like,Daisy is going to get it.
When I saw you downstairs, I really wanted to say, I think youre going to get it.
But that would have been such an awful thing to do.
And then Lenny didnt tell me straightaway [the next day].
He was like, The offer has gone out to the agent so I cant tell you.
But then he was like, Just out of curiosity, who do you think were going to cast?
And I was like, I think its going to go to Daisy.
And he was like, Okay, yeah, but you cant tell anyone.
DEJ:[Laughs.
]I sat at home by the phone just waiting for it to ring.
Did you have a sense that your lives would change in this massive way?PM:No.
DEJ:I dont think so.
Its strange, even now its odd seeing people talk about Paul and I.
Its something Im getting used to.
Youre being talked about, but youre like, Im reading this.
I can see what youre saying.
Stuff like that is a bit odd.
PM:My friends at home are going mad and theyre showing me all the tweets.
People dont realize that it will probably come back to me and Daisy.
Its this weird thing.
Ultimately I was just like,Oh, people are a little bit crazy on Twitter.
DEJ:Ive never liked Twitter.
Im staying off of it on the whole, I think.
I think Im going to be blissfully unaware.
Im proud of the job weve done.
Im proud of the show.
Nothing else matters, really.
You cant control how people are going to feel.
If theyre not going to like it, theyre not going to like it.
But Id rather just them not like it, and me be happy.
Lets go back to the early days of this process.There is quite a lot of sex on the show.
What were your initial thoughts when reading those scenes?DEJ:I was obviously a bit trepidatious.
We hadnt done any of that stuff before.
He didnt want them to feel different from a dialogue scene.
And we had [intimacy coordinator] Ita OBrien to help us through it.
I always felt that we were in very safe hands with them.
Its not like its onstage stuff that you commit to film is going to be out there forever.
My agent was like, Just so you know, this is a part of the character.
PM:I remember Lenny sitting me down during the chemistry reads.
I could just see he was so nervous about approaching the subject.
I was totally surprised that there would be any other way of doing it.
If youre going to do the book correctly, I think thats required.
But I just thought it was funny how nervous he was.
One of your first sex scenes happens in the second episode, and it lasts almost ten minutes.
I just love the awkwardness when Marianne comes in and hes like, Tea?
And shes like, Yeah.
PM:That was actually uscorpsing.
DEJ:The majority of those scenes are us corpsing in some capacity.
Like, when Mariannes bra gets stuck, we were actually laughing at it.
PM:That was the very first take.
And I was like, Ive forgotten how to do the clasp!
DEJ:Its so fun when youre given space as an actor to have a laugh.
We were filming in Connells bedroom, but the set was in a school gym.
There was no ventilation or anything.
Thats a lot of people crammed into that room.
PM:It was so hot.
DEJ:It was horrible.
PM: Andrew [OReilly], our focus puller, hes quite a sweaty man.
Hes just one of those people who sweats.
It was so funny.
You also had to wear fake sweat, right?PM:[Laughs.]
DEJ:Egyptian Magic!
The smell of that stuff.
Its a really great moisturizer though.
We had very soft skin by the end of the project.
How involved was Sally in developing your onscreen dynamic?
PM:I literally did, full-on.
Kind of like stalking someones Instagram.
Did you tell her that you found them?PM:I did, yeah.
I got over the shame of it.
What did she say?PM:She was just like, Oh, great!
So much of what goes on between your characters is unspoken.
Theyre afraid to be straightforward with each other, and as a viewer youre like, Come on!
So I was like,Right, so she uses a lot of eye contact.
Was it frustrating to you that they just couldnt get their shit together?PM:Absolutely.
DEJ:Wed come to scenes sometimes and be like, Uh …
Wed be reading them like, My God, can you just talk properly?
PM:And wed argue about who was right and who was wrong.
What do you think it is about them?
She has this difficult family life.
PM:I think that ultimately Connell is the person who causes the relationship to stop at various points.
He is obsessed with Marianne.
Hes obsessed with the way that she thinks and acts.
Theres an almost alienlike quality to her in his eyes.
But hes wrapped up with this insecurity.
What I love about the novel is that Sally doesnt give you a reason for him to be insecure.
And those insecurities get in the way of the thing that he loves most.
I think Marianne is an angel and is incredibly accommodating to those insecurities.
She welcomes him in and allows him a second chance.
I think that totally testifies to the connection that they have.
Its able to survive Connells misgivings.
When you said that Marianne is angelic, I saw Daisy smile.
You guys were inside of these characters every day for months.
Theres lots about our characters that are similar to us, but on the whole, youre acting.
PM:We found solace in each other.
There were days that we would both come in like, Im exhausted.
We would share the burden of the pressure.
How did you shake off the intensity?
Would you go out after work?DEJ:We were so knackered, werent we?
Wed go out on the weekends and stuff.
PM: Id be like, Were going out.
Were going to have fun.
Cut to like two or three drinks in, I was like, Okay, Im going home.
DEJ:Irish good-bye.
You experience his depression for the duration of the shooting day.
The next day you could be shooting one of their joyous moments.
The pace of filming helps me not to linger on the sadness or the euphoria of it.
The show feels very real in terms of capturing how it feels when young people fall in love.
When youre falling in love for the first time, you feel like you could do anything.
You just feel like you could conquer the world.
I found that frustrating.
Its like theyre missing a limb.
Theyre their best selves when theyre together.
Its really well documented by Sally.
And then, the scene where he tells Marianne that hes invited Rachel to the Debs.
Hes trying to normalize it, and he just knows hes messing it up.
So I had a cold.
But it was like we were all on a school trip.
PM:The last day of the shoot, cycling in Italy.
Daisy has this way of cycling where its just incredibly diligent.
Her head stays perfectly still.
I couldnt stop laughing at it.
Daisy was slightly nervous if I had to do no hands.
I think thats actually in the final take.
I go, No hands!
and you could see Daisy saying, Stop doing what youre doing!
while keeping her head incredibly still and straight.
DEJ:[Laughs.]
I dont know what happens with my head.
What is your take on the ending?
How do you feel about it?PM:I love it.
Its a really uplifting yet sad melancholic, nostalgic, romantic ending.
I dont think itsoverlyromantic, yet I find it incredibly romantic.
DEJ:I love that the characters are very much alive.
Theyre still off living their life and intertwining with each other.
Fundamentally, they are different people because theyve had each other in their lives.
I think that theyll always be in each others lives.
I guess a little bit of me cant bear for it to not be in a romantic way.
But Im comforted by the fact that theyll always be friends.
[To Paul] Youre not happy with that.
PM:Im not happy because they tried the whole friends thing.
I dont think thats feasible.
Our final day of the full shoot was in Italy, when we were doing the cycling scene.
So I was like, Its not the end; its not the end.
And then as I stopped, Paul came out red-faced, blubbing.
I was like, Why are you crying?
And he was like, Its done.
We were on this incredible, beautiful landscape.
The sun was setting and you could just hear the wails echo across the valley.
Then, at the wrap party, we were all so knackered and upset that there was no celebration.
We were just like, Its ended.
PM:I was in bed at 11 p.m. on wrap night.
DEJ:You were too fragile and upset.
I was like,Im not going to cry.
Im going to be delighted that its done and celebrate with everybody.
But when I heard, Thats a wrap onNormal People, I immediately just started bawling.
Its a shame we cant watch it together because it would be nice to go out and celebrate.
But yeah, were just keeping in contact throughout all of this madness.
Its a very surreal thing.
We went through the shooting project together and that was a life changer.
This feels a bit like that, so its nice to have Paul to share it with.
Ultimately, Im just looking forward to seeing Daisy.
