Exclusive Interview: Logan Macrae Talks Where the Crawdads Sing, His Favorite Kya and Jodie Moment, and More

Logan Macrae is a rising young actor who is quickly making a name for himself in Hollywood. He’s landed coveted roles in projects including Apple TV+’s Blackbird and the highly-anticipated war drama, Devotion.

This July, he stars opposite Daisy Edgar-Jones and Taylor John Smith in Where the Crawdads Sing. Adapted from the bestselling novel, Where the Crawdads Sing tells the story of Kya, an abandoned girl who raised herself to adulthood in the dangerous marshlands of North Carolina. For years, rumors of the “Marsh Girl” haunted Barkley Cove, isolating the sharp and resilient Kya from her community. Drawn to two young men from town, Kya opens herself to a new and startling world; but when one of them is found dead, she is immediately cast by the community as the main suspect. As the case unfolds, the verdict as to what actually happened becomes increasingly unclear, threatening to reveal the many secrets that lay within the marsh.

Pop Culturalist was lucky enough to speak with Logan about his transition from modeling into acting, Where the Crawdads Sing, his collaboration with Daisy, and more!

PC: How did you discover your passion for the arts and storytelling?
Logan: I originally started on this non-traditional journey through modeling. I was in college. I was studying economics with a political science minor in Boulder. I was studying that, and I decided to push a bit on modeling. I went out to New York City for one summer between semesters because I had some friends out there. I was living with my grandma. I was commuting into New York City whenever they needed me for castings. Summer went really, really well. My agents basically told me, “You can’t leave.” So I switched from regular classes to online classes. That eventually fizzled out because of work. I officially moved into New York City to model. I finally got to the point where I was like, “Okay, what else? What’s the next step?” I’ve always been somebody that once I feel like I get a grasp on something, I want to learn what’s next. Somebody was like, “Well, take some classes.” I started very generally. I took commercial acting classes that basically taught me how to turn left, turn right, and smile at the camera.

I kept pursuing it. I had somebody recommend a teacher named Sheila Gray to me. She operates out of the Upper West Side. She has a great client list. She really, really got me in touch with my emotions. It was a sensory class that started walking me through how to bring up certain feelings, how to work through things, and how to make yourself comfortable in spaces. For example, if a scene calls for you being in your apartment, figuring out how to walk through the idea that you’re in your own apartment, and finding that comfort level. I fell in love with it from there. It was really a form of therapy for me because you work through a lot of things. In the first class that you take with her, she works you through an exercise. The goal is to have you crying in a corner. It worked really well. She also told me, “If I can’t get a student to do that during the first class, I don’t know if they necessarily have the emotional depth to take them where I need to take them. Thankfully that was something that I was able to connect with really easily, but it meant a lot to me.

Then I learned how to take that sensory work and bring it into improv through her. We would go through these pre-improv exercises. Then we would be thrown into a scene and work through it. Then we would do scene and script study. It finally got to a point where she was like, “Hey, they’re sending you out for auditions, right?” I was like, “No. I’m just doing this for fun right now.” She was like, “No. No. No. I need to have a conversation with somebody.” She had a conversation with my now agent and was like, “He should be going out.” That started the whole journey.

PC: Who or what has had the biggest influence on your career?
Logan: Oh, wow. I don’t know if I could sit there and pinpoint one person. I have a great group of people around me. I can talk to my team on a personal level and make sure that I’m making the right decisions. But my initial thought was my parents. While going to college I said to them, “Hey, I’m probably not going to come back.” I stayed on the East Coast. My parents have always been, probably to a fault, just extremely, extremely supportive. They’ve always been like, “If this is what you want to do, go do it then.” So probably them.

PC: What would you say is the biggest lesson that you’ve learned modeling that you’ve now been able to apply to your work on screen?
Logan: Technically, there’s a lot of crossover between modeling and acting. I’ve never really had an issue in terms of hitting marks and eyelines and little things along that line. Those are little tricks that people don’t know are taking place because there are times and scenes where it’s like you’re talking to this person, but you’re actually looking at an X on the wall over there and not actually making eye contact with someone. So on the technical side, I would say that things came pretty easily to me because of modeling.

PC: Tell us about Where the Crawdads Sing, your character in the film, and what drew you to this project.
Logan: Where the Crawdads Sing is a massive book. It’s a huge hit and popular worldwide. I didn’t even realize when I started this whole process how mind-blowingly popular this book is. It continues to be to this day. It won the Best Paperback in France last year. It hasn’t stopped, which is amazing. When the trailer dropped for the movie, it skyrocketed back up the New York Times Bestseller List. It’s been so cool.

I didn’t directly search this project out myself. I wasn’t like, “Hey, I really want to be a part of this.” I have a great team that submitted me for the project. They ended up finding the right role for me. I auditioned for another part initially. They ended up sending Jodie back to me. The more I learned about Jodie, the more I realized it was a match made in heaven. When I finally picked up the book, I did my deep dive. There were a lot of similarities between who I am as a person and who Jodie is.

PC: You were speaking about how supportive your parents have been. How did you celebrate landing the news that you got the role? What did it mean to you to share this moment with them?
Logan: You’re going to make me cry. It was a great call. This is a very hard industry because we’re told no over and over and over for a long period of time. It gets difficult because I have such supportive parents. They’ve always been like, “How was that audition? How was this one? How was that one?” It’s hard to tell somebody that, “Nothing came of that one” over and over and over again.

I won’t forget that call. I was actually in Savannah, Georgia about to start working on Devotion. I got the call about Crawdads the day before I started working. I’d never been to Savannah before, so I was cruising around on my own. I took a second to myself and found a quiet place. I didn’t know where I was in Savannah, but I took a moment to myself because I was really, really in shock. I was very happy about it. Then I let my parents know. It was a good day.

PC: I love that story. When you’re working on a film that’s being adapted from a popular novel, there are going to be comparisons that are made. What’s one thing about your character that you wanted to make sure translated from the book to the screen? What’s something new that you brought to him?
Logan: I have two younger brothers, and Jodie really plays that older sibling role. It’s something that’s very important to him. He has a lot of love for his sister. They had a serious kind of separation throughout the story. The biggest thing that I thought was important was to bring in the idea that this tragic thing happened but that I care about you immensely.

There were things that were touched upon in the book that weren’t outright said. Jodie has a very specific outlook on life and a very specific way in which he attacks different situations. That’s something that I learned in life and while going through continuous rejection in modeling and acting. I’ve created a very hard skin—or whatever you like to call it—in how I deal with those things. There are different philosophies. Those are things that I read and dove into to help me get through that and keep the right mindset through all of it. That was my take on who Jodie was. That’s how I brought myself into this role.

PC: What was that collaboration like working with Daisy [Edgar-Jones] as you brought the history of your two characters to life on the screen?
Logan: We didn’t have the dream scenario where we could hang out for weeks on end and do whatever we wanted and enjoy each other. But that wasn’t necessary. Daisy is such a kind person. She’s a very relatable person. She was very, very welcoming from the very first time that I met her. There was such an ease in the scenario that thankfully I didn’t have to pretend too much because she’s somebody who is very open and caring. We fell into a very good relationship very quickly.

PC: This is one of your biggest roles to date. Did anything surprise you about this process? What would you say is the biggest takeaway that you learned on set that you’ll bring to future projects?
Logan: It’s crazy the attention that the acting side of this business receives, but we’re one small part of making movies. The actors do get a lot of attention for what they do because they’re the ones that you visually see. But a moving, operating set can be hundreds of people. There are a lot of people that are trying to do their job at the same time that you’re trying to do yours. I can pick up on people and things very easily. It’s very easy to get into your own head and be like, “That person is mad at me.” But really, they’re not paying any attention to you. They’re making sure a light is hitting you in the face the right way. I learned that each person is there to fill a role and do a job. You have to do your job during that process. That makes it easier for everyone else.

PC: The film drops on July 15th. Is there a scene that you’re really excited for your fans to see?
Logan: The scene where Kya and Jodie reunite. It’s really special. Like I was saying earlier, their bond was something so significant, especially during their childhood. To bring them back together is very, very special. It means a lot to the storyline. It means a lot to where the story goes from there too.

PC: Outside of this film, you’ve got tons in the works. Are there any projects that you can talk about at this time?
Logan: There’s Black Bird that dropped on July 8th. That’s a cool one from Apple TV. It’s a limited series with Taron Egerton and Ray Liotta. I can keep going. It’s a list of big names. That one is amazing. It’s really cool. From everything that I’ve been able to see from it, it’s suspenseful, it’s scary, and it’s intense. It’s everything that you could ask for in a limited series. It was perfect because you couldn’t have fit it in a movie. It needed several movie-length episodes to be able to complete that story. I’m very excited about that. The character I got to play in that was a fun guy. It was an easy character to play because he’s the guy that never grew up. He gets to be this dipsh*t that does whatever he wants. It was fun to be him for a while.

Beyond that, I have Devotion coming out in October. Then I worked on another project called The Burial with Jamie Foxx and Tommy Lee Jones, which will be released in 2023.

PC: This is such an exciting time in your career. As you look ahead to the next five, ten years, is there a character or story that you would love to bring to life on the screen? As your career develops and grows, could we potentially see you working behind the scenes?
Logan: I look at things through the lens of what scares me. If it does, I should probably head in that direction. The two things that I’ve mentioned that scare me are filmmaking and being on the other side of the camera. That and stage work because there are no starts and stops. It’s all live. That probably scares me more than anything. It’s something that I should pursue somehow. But I haven’t lined anything up yet or thought too hard about what I want to do along those lines.

To keep up with Logan, follow him on Twitter and Instagram. Watch Where the Crawdads Sing in theaters today!

Photo Credit: Kelsey Hale