Normal People stars Daisy Edgar-Jones and Paul Mescal support author Sally Rooney in UK book ban

Now, two actors whose rise to prominence was spurred when they costarred in the BBC adaptation of Normal People have come to Rooney’s defense. Paul Mescal and Daisy Edgar-Jones, who played mismatched lovers in the successful series, signed onto an open letter to the British government supporting Rooney and saying of her support of Palestine action “Sally Rooney is a writer, not a terrorist.”

Other notable signatories to the letter, published in The New Statesman, include Trainspotting author Irvine Welsh, Mescal’s Hamnet costar Jessie Buckley, Under the Skin director Jonathan Glazer, White Teeth author Zadie Smith, actors Susan Sarandon, Sharon Horgan, and Tilda Swinton, and the entirety of the band Kneecap, among some 150 others. 

In the text, the group says of the U.K.’s designation of Rooney as a supporter of terror, “Their withdrawal from sale, on the basis of ill-conceived and draconian anti-terror legislation, is an affront to basic principles of free speech and expression so long taken for granted in this country. We categorically reject censorship—whether direct or indirect—and urge the government to change course, amending the legislation which has led us to this point of repressive absurdity.”