Daisy Edgar-Jones moved to Oklahoma to film "Twisters," but she didn't see any real tornadoes.
The "Normal People" actor tells TODAY.com that hasn't stopped her from trying to see one on her own time.
“As a Brit, I kept having vivid dreams about tornadoes up until I went over to Oklahoma,” she says. “I was curious to see whether I was going to see some — we did see some crazy weather, but I haven’t seen a tornado yet.”
“But I’ve been chasing — I’ve actually been storm chasing now. Because I really want to see one,” she adds.
The 26-year-old jokes she's turning into her co-star Glen Powell's character Tyler in the film, a social media star famous for his daring storm-chasing content. It's far from her own character Kate, a retired chaser turned meteorologist, reporting from her desk in New York rather than in the plains.
When her old friend Javi (Anthony Ramos) asks her to help test out new tornado-detecting technology back home, their three paths converge among the storms in Oklahoma.
Edgar-Jones reveals she actually wrote to Lee Isaac Chung, the director of “Twisters,” when she heard he would be adapting the sequel.
“I loved ‘Minari’ and so I sort of went after it,” she says. “I met with Isaac, and Isaac’s the most lovely, gentle soul you’ll ever meet. He kind of like, casually offered (the role) to me when we met, and I didn’t know if he actually had! I was like, ‘Wait, have you actually offered me this monster film?’”
Once he confirmed, Edgar-Jones says she was “just really excited.”
“Twisters” begins with an opening sequence that slowly explains why Kate stopped chasing storms, which Edgar-Jones says was filmed periodically throughout the film shoot.
"There was some studio stuff and there was some on location stuff,” she says. “It’s quite a long scene, but that that first scene is really unexpected.”
The scene establishes the high-stakes, life-or-death nature of storm chasing. Edgar-Jones says she's still afraid of tornadoes because of it — despite her experience on set with professional storm consultants and supervisors.
“I’m still probably fearful of tornadoes and anything extreme because coming from London, I’m just not used to it,” she says with a laugh.
“Like, I think when you meet people who live in Oklahoma, everyone’s kind of a meteorologist. Everyone knows how to read weather maps and understand it,” she continues. “I can see why you become so fascinated by the weather, because it’s so huge and it makes you feel so small in a quite human and really lovely way.”
For all the actual tornado threats, she also loved living in Oklahoma, line dancing and hanging with Powell’s adopted pup Brisket as they took on the legacy of the original film.
Edgar-Jones and Powell recently went head-to-head on “Hot Ones,” eating their way through spicy wings as they answered questions about the film. She also taught Powell and Ramos the dance to the Charli XCX track "Apple," which to her surprise, went viral on social media.
The Charli XCX fan — spotted dancing at one of her concerts with Paul Mescal — says she’s having a “brat summer,” just like the singer intended in the trend inspired by her latest album, “Brat.”
“Brat summer is just absolutely living your best life, going out, having a blast, dancing ‘til the sun comes up, teaching Glen Powell and Anthony Ramos the ‘Apple’ dance, wearing lime green, or the specific type of bright green, and yeah, just typing everything in lowercase,” she says.
"Twisters" premieres in theaters on July 19. (Universal is owned by NBCUniversal, TODAY’s parent company.)
