Normal People

chair.

Let's see, number 49, Normal People.

I don't know.

That sounds familiar.

I know, I know.

Downton Abbey, Fleabag, Insecure, My Brilliant Friend, Normal People, Orphan Black, Succession Veep.

Good list.

She got a highbrow list there.

[laughs]

It's, it's her best performance since Normal People.

It's very subtle, and I think it's, it's her best work.

So-

I always get such a sense of nostalgia coming back to Dublin.

You know, we shot Normal People in 2019.

And yeah, it was such a special and important time in my life.

So just, yeah, I feel very, very lucky to have had such a wonderful experience with them.

It did.

Yes, it did.

And, you know, I still kind of can't quite believe how resonant that series was, you know, Normal People for so many people.

And, yeah, it's something I'm so proud to have been a part of.

I was completely, utterly engrossed in who they were, who they are now, and if they would ever come back to a place where they wanted to be around each other that much again.

So when I was reading the book, I was thinking about normal people because the character of Marianne has a relationship when she studies abroad with a photographer who she very much lets boss her around.

Like, you're going to brush your teeth now and now you're going to let me tie you up and now you're going to let me take these pictures of you.

and don't touch that and you're not allowed to eat yet or who said you could take that out of the cabinet and everything is very deliberate and she's basically being treated like a child kind of but like in a mean way and it's not until later in the book and later in the show that you really understand that everybody has made her feel worthless her whole life And that she doesn't think that she deserves any better than that.

I was like, you've definitely never read anything like it.

and I was like you know how the Colleen Hoover books are like all plot and like there's all those twists and people are like oh my god I can't believe this just happened this is like the best vacation book ever I was like imagine a book like that combined with like Donna Tartt's Secret History and then a little flavor of like Promising Young Woman and then also like it's more literary than Colleen Hoover and I was like that's kind of what you're working with and he was like that sounds insane and i was like it was it was a real ride it was a real ride this is one of those books where i was like 20 years ago this wasn't getting published nobody would have touched this with a 10-foot pole they really wouldn't have especially like before me too there's no way i'm so glad we're getting books like this i'm so glad that like Because the biggest part of reading to me is seeing different perspectives and being in shoes that aren't yours and trying to understand how other people think and react to things and experience things.

And I got to tell you, like, I've never met anybody like Marianne in Normal People.

And I've never met anybody like Faye or Henry in Helpless.

It stars Daisy Edgar-Jones as Eleanor Dashwood.

And you'll know Daisy from Normal People, where she played Marianne.

She was on The One Show last night talking about that breakout part.

I got a fringe put in just before I auditioned, and I'd been auditioning lots, I'd been working for years, but not really got anything that I really wanted.

It's my lucky charm.

Yeah, the lucky fringe.

Sally Rooney, the person who wrote the book Normal People and then Daisy went and starred in the show, which was a huge lockdown hit.

Daisy Edgar-Jones is back on The Breakfast Show next week.

And this releases on October 16th.

It's going to star Daisy Edgar Jones, who is just my gal from Normal People.

I'm obsessed with her.

I love her as an actress.