Sam Claflin and Riley Keough take us behind an episode 8 scene that brings on the waterworks on ‘Daisy Jones & the Six’ — and marks a major change from the novel. https://t.co/ixtHK828PC
— Entertainment Weekly (@EW) March 18, 2023
🚨🚨🚨 SPOILERS 🚨🚨🚨
At the end of episode 8 of Daisy Jones and the Six, Daisy (Riley Keough) parties too hard after a show with her husband Nicky (Gavin Drea) and nearly overdoses and dies. Billy (Sam Claflin)- intent on firing Daisy from the tour- and Rod (Timothy Olyphant) find her and attempt to save her life. Jumping into the shower, Billy cradles Daisy’s body, gently slapping her face and begging her to be okay.
a part of billy literally started to die and you can see the exact moment it happens pic.twitter.com/v0QBcu7Cqz
— mika (@simonedaisys) March 17, 2023
The scene is a big change from the novel, in which Simone (Nabiyah Be) is the one to find her in the shower while Daisy is with Nicky in Italy.
• As challenging as it was to watch, it was as difficult for the actors to film. “I found that to be really emotional,” Keough tells EW of the scene. “It was hard for me to shoot. It’s a really sad scene. Sometimes I can’t overthink it. I have to go and be in the moment.”
• The end wasn’t scripted with Claflin just knowing his camera placement and he ad-libbed everything else. “Personally, I hadn’t been through that kind of experience before. So I was very sensitive to the idea that people have been through this and go through this and it’s a terrifying thing to find someone in that shape…It was a very, very difficult scene. But having Timothy and his portrayal as the third party in that sequence was so on point and so important. He isn’t phased at all. It makes Billy’s emotional turmoil even more heartbreaking. Because Rod is like, ‘Oh, we need a doctor.’ It’s underplayed in a wonderful way that makes the magic even more elevated.”
• Filming was tense according to Claflin: “[…] it was that thing that was sort of looming over us. It was right at the end of the day. I’ll never forget. The atmosphere on set was very quiet. During that day, I think everyone was just very sensitive of the moment that we’re trying to depict authentically. Generally speaking, it’s a very, very emotionally charged but also physically difficult scene to have to shoot.”
• Did some part of Daisy want to take her life? Keough says maybe. “That’s something left open for the audience’s interpretation. When things aren’t super explained in that way, I like to leave it open for the audience. She has an addiction problem and tends to self-destruct and not want to feel pain. But that’s as far as I would like to assess it. The rest is up to the audience.”
• Both Keough and creator Scott Neustadter agree this moment is significant for Billy and Daisy’s relationship:
Neustadter: “For us, it was really getting to witness Daisy going overboard and having some of that behavior come back to haunt her, which it always does. And then on the other side of it, it was watching Billy see that maybe he’s going to lose her and what that would do to him — would it crystallize for him how important she is to him? “Because…in that episode he’s like, ‘I don’t need her. She’s bad for me. She’s bad for us. I’m the Billy Dunne who can do it all by myself.’ And then he’s faced with the possibility that she wouldn’t be around anymore. I really loved seeing him realize that that wasn’t true.”
Keough: “I thought that it was so deeply emotional to have Billy find Daisy and Billy be the one who is there for her in that moment and not Nicky. That sort of says a lot of the things that they can’t say to each other, that Billy can’t say to Daisy.”
Finale is this Thursday!
