Yahoo News ‘Daisy Jones & The Six’: Riley Keough & Sam Claflin Reflect On “Emotionally Challenging” Overdose Scene, Creators Explain Its Departure From The Book
SPOILER ALERT! This post contains details from Episode 8 of Prime Video’s Daisy Jones & The Six.
“It’s you,” Riley Keough‘s Daisy says as she looks into the eyes of Billy Dunne (Sam Claflin), who is holding her on the floor of a hotel shower, moments after she’s woken up from a drug overdose. Then, the screen cuts to black and the credits roll.
More from Deadline
Prime Video UK & Ireland Adds True-Crime Series On Murdered Sex Workers And Serial Killer Ian Brady
Riley Keough & Gina Gammell's Cannes Breakout 'War Pony' Acquired By Momentum Pictures At SXSW
'Blade Runner 2099' At Prime Video Adds Jeremy Podeswa As Pilot Director, Producing Director & EP
Episode 8 of Daisy Jones & The Six marks a turning point for Billy and Daisy, who up until this point have tried to avoid the obvious collision course they’ve set each other on.
Daisy had just returned from Greece with her new fiancé Nicky in tow, only to go even further off the rails when she hits the road again with the band. Minutes before he finds her passed out in the bathroom, Billy had been ready to kick her out of the band for going against his wishes by singing their first chart topping single “Look At Us Now” off the cuff on stage that night. The impassioned song had been off limits on their world tour, despite its popularity. But Daisy is prone to breaking the rules, especially when she’s feeling vulnerable.
When Nicky opens the door, Billy notices something is wrong and bursts into the room, only to find Daisy unresponsive in the shower. As Billy tries to revive her, Nicky tries to run.
“It’s so revealing for both of their characters and certainly puts the two of them on a different trajectory going forward,” executive producer Brad Mendelsohn told Deadline.
The scene is a departure from the source material. In Taylor Jenkins Reid’s novel, Daisy overdoses in Italy, and Nicky is the one who she wakes up to in the shower. The scene serves as a catalyst for Daisy to get her act together, but in the on screen adaptation it also has another purpose, creator Scott Neustadter said.
“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?” he explained. “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 remembered the scene to be “emotionally challenging,” with Claflin adding that “nothing was really scripted.”
“I knew what the beats were, and knew where I had to get positionally for a camera, but like everything else was just organic,” Claflin said.
He added: “I’d had a really busy, hectic day of the scenes, but 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.”
In under two minutes, the scene solidifies their inevitability — that no matter how much time or distance they put in between each other, there will always be a flame they can’t put out.
“I loved that change,” Keough said of the departure from the novel. “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.”
Daisy Jones & The Six is streaming on Prime Video. The final two episodes will be available on March 24.
Best of Deadline
Sign up for Deadline's Newsletter. For the latest news, follow us on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.
