'Where The Crawdads Sing' star Daisy Edgar-Jones has ambitions to produce and direct

Watch: Daisy Edgar-Jones shares future filmmaking ambitions

As the movie adaptation of hit novel Where The Crawdads Sing prepares to arrive in UK cinemas this week, its star Daisy Edgar-Jones has opened up about a possible future move to behind the camera.

She has her eyes on directing.

Talking to Yahoo, her reaction to the idea of directing a film was: "I’d love to."

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She admits that working on her latest release has inspired her to think in that direction. “On this job in particular, the heads of department were pretty much women and I’d never worked on anything where that was the case,” she explained.

“When you see that, it makes you think that’s something you could do too. It’s really important to continue seeing women in lead roles and being represented behind the camera.”

Reese Witherspoon’s Hello Sunshine produced the film, although she has championed Delia Owens’ original novel since in September 2018 when it was selected for Reese’s Book Club.

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The Oscar-winner’s company aims to employ more women in its films, especially behind the camera. In this instance, Olivia Newman directed, the screenplay was written by Lucy Alibar (Beasts Of The Southern Wild) and Polly Morgan (A Quiet Place II and the forthcoming The Woman King) was the cinematographer. Production design was by Sue Chan and art direction by Kirby Feagan.

Watch a trailer for Where The Crawdads Sing

The film follows Edgar-Jones’ character, Kya, as she grows up alone in the marshlands, isolated from the hostile local townsfolk and uses her talent as an artist to earn a living.

At the same time, believing she’s been abandoned by her first teenage love, Tate (Taylor John Smith), she falls prey to the charms of the smooth talking Chase (Harris Dickinson). When he’s found murdered, she quickly becomes the obvious suspect.

Where The Crawdads Sing isn’t the first time Edgar-Jones has worked alongside a woman director. Her career took off with the 2020 mini-series Normal People, co-directed by Hettie Macdonald, while her most recent film Fresh was the directorial debut of Mimi Cave and was also written by Lauryn Kahn.

Her next project arrives in the UK in a week’s time when the much-anticipated Under The Banner Of Heaven arrives on Disney+. Based on a true life murder in the 1980s among the Mormon community of Utah, it also stars Andrew Garfield as the detective investigating the case.

In addition to Edgar-Jones, Smith and Dickinson, Where The Crawdads Sing stars David Strathairn, Garret Dillahunt and another British-born actress, Michael Hyatt.

Where The Crawdads Sing releases exclusively at cinemas on 22 July, 2022. Watch a trailer below.