This weekend’s newest thriller is a chilling adaptation of the bestselling novel Where The Crawdads Sing, starring Normal People breakout actress Daisy Edgar-Jones as a young woman who becomes an outsider in a fictional coastal town of North Carolina in the 1960s. Taylor Swift was a huge fan of the book and wrote a love letter to Edgar-Jones’ character of Kya with the song “Carolina.” So we had to ask the 24-year-old actress about the experience of brushing shoulders with the iconic songwriter with the original tune.
As Where The Crawdads Sing’s director Olivia Newman previously told us, “Carolina” was written before the movie was even shot. However, Daisy Edgar-Jones told CinemaBlend her experience with the song didn’t come until much later. In her words:
So the first time I heard the song the whole way through was when I got to see a screening of the film – it wasn't entirely cut together. It was like the nearly finished version of it. And me and my agents, we were watching it and the ending happens obviously. And there's quite, it's quite an impactful ending. And then the song plays out and I remember we all just sat and were like, ‘oh my gosh’, cause it really does feel like she managed to capture so beautifully in that melody that the feeling I had when I read the book and the feeling I had playing. So I, yeah I was incredibly moved listening to it.
Daisy Edgar-Jones had the experience watching Where The Crawdads Sing audiences will have when they catch it in theaters. Following the movie’s shocking ending, she was left with her emotions around Kya’s journey and Taylor Swift’s fitting song, “Carolina.” You can check out the official lyric video for the song below, but keep in mind that it holds a brand new meaning once you see the movie play out:
Yeah… this one is going to be in our heads for some time. Taylor Swift is no stranger to having her music in movies and television shows, most recently in Amazon’s The Summer I Turned Pretty, but Where The Crawdads Sing is one of the few times the singer has penned a song specifically for a movie. A decade ago, she memorably wrote “Safe & Sound” for another book adaptation with The Hunger Games, so it’s all coming full circle.
Swift is an avid reader, and when she first announced the song earlier this year, she revealed that she got “absolutely lost” in Where The Crawdads Sing when she read it years ago and wanted to be part of the soundtrack. She said her aim was to “create something haunting and ethereal” to match the story and now it plays during the credits of the film.
Where The Crawdads Sing stars Daisy Edgar-Jones as Kya, the North Carolina town’s Marsh Girl, who becomes the prime suspect of a murder trial after her ex boyfriend is found dead in the marshes. Kya recalls her life, which is filled with a combination of trauma, abuse and romance, as she is placed on trial for murder. The movie is produced by Reese Witherspoon’s Hello Sunshine company, which also adapted books like Gone Girl and Big Little Lies. The movie is now playing in theaters, and stay tuned for more exclusive interviews for 2022’s movie releases here on CinemaBlend.
