STACK #216 October 2022

MOVIE FEATURE

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SOUTHERN SPEAK When casting Daisy Edgar-Jones in the role of Kya, director Olivia Newman was initially uncertain whether the UK star could deliver a convincing Southern accent. “Her first reading brought all of us to tears, including Delia Owens, because it felt like we were watching Kya’s voice come out of this beautiful British actress,” she tells STACK . “It felt like Kya was just emerging from her mouth.”

Based on Delia Owens’ 2018 best-selling novel, Where the Crawdads Sing is an intriguing Southern mystery-thriller and one of the latest films from ReeseWitherspoon’s production company. Words Gill Pringle THE MARSHGIRL

from the start,” says Edgar-Jones, who stars opposite Taylor John Smith’s Tate and Harris Dickinson’s Chase; Oscar-nominee David Strathairn portraying Kya’s lawyer. “She says it herself: a lot of the way they treat her has more to do with them than it does with Kya. She’s become this larger-than-life myth. They get wrapped up in this idea of the mythic ‘Marsh Girl’ who lives out in the swamp. They just don’t understand that all she really is, is an abandoned young woman they don’t help. “The main thing I love about Kya is how resilient she is. When Chase is found dead in the marsh, Kya goes on trial for his murder. All eyes are on her during the trial, yet she continues to show incredible resilience and strength, and maintains her quiet curiosity and connection with the natural world. Delighted with the film’s casting, Witherspoon says, “Daisy Edgar-Jones is a once-in-a-lifetime talent. She can morph herself into so many different characters. There’s no artifice, there’s no lying, she just becomes the character. “And I have to say, I’m pretty tough on Southern accents, but Daisy just fell into it so beautifully, with a real respect for the language and the way that Delia wrote,” adds Witherspoon, who was born in New Orleans and raised in Nashville. Not the only A-list fan of the book, Taylor Swift created further buzz when she volunteered to record an original song, Carolina , for the film’s soundtrack. A slow-burner, just like Delia Owens’ plot, Where the Crawdads Sing eventually made the box office sing, globally raking in US$125 million – five times its production budget!

Y ou’ve got to hand it to Reese Witherspoon. In the 22 years since she launched her second career as a film producer, she’s developed an uncanny eye for picking a winner. Founding her own production enterprise, Type A Films, in 2000, later merging with Australian producer Bruna Papandrea’s Make Movies company, they became one of the most successful female-led production outfits in Hollywood, producing Oscar-nominated movies Gone Girl and Wild , and the hit TV drama Big Little Lies . A passionate reader, Witherspoon has utilised her fan following with her own wildly popular book club, putting her in an enviable position of first dibs on future best-sellers. And when the manuscript for Delia Owens’ Southern mystery-thriller Where the Crawdads

Sing landed on her desk – prior to its 2018 release when it became an instant best-seller – she was hooked. “I read the novel in one day. I just couldn’t put it down,” recalls Witherspoon, who immediately optioned the screen rights with producing partner Lauren Neustadter. “I fell in love with Kya as a main character, as a little girl who’s growing up in a very rural area, shunned by society and trying to find a way to just save

• Where the Crawdads Sing is out on Oct 12

herself, just survive. The experiences she has with the two men in her life are both so touching but also terrifying. Delia Owens wrote this book with such authenticity, you could just tell she really grew up in this place,” she adds. With Olivia Newman set to direct the movie adaptation, Where the Crawdads Sing became the buzziest film project with every under-30 actress clamouring for the lead role of Kya, a girl left to raise herself in the marshlands of North Carolina after her abusive father leaves. Her only real friend is a local boy named Tate Walker, although even he deserts her. All alone, Kya briefly dates local playboy and athlete Chase Andrews, becoming the main suspect after he is found dead. Newman quickly honed in on British actress Daisy Edgar-Jones for Kya, already a fan of her role as Marianne Sheridan in Brit TV miniseries Normal People . “The townspeople treat Kya very badly

Daisy Edgar-Jones and Taylor John Smith

28 OCTOBER 2022

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