‘Normal People’ stars dish on new Hulu show based on bestseller

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Buzzy bestseller “Normal People,” the talk of the book world when it was published in 2018, is being adapted for the small screen. Hulu’s series of the same name, premiering Wednesday, is a 12-episode drama following young Irish couple Marianne (Daisy Edgar-Jones, “War of the Worlds”) and Connell (newcomer Paul Mescal) through several years of …

Buzzy bestseller “Normal People,” the talk of the book world when it was published in 2018, is being adapted for the small screen.

Hulu’s series of the same name, premiering Wednesday, is a 12-episode drama following young Irish couple Marianne (Daisy Edgar-Jones, “War of the Worlds”) and Connell (newcomer Paul Mescal) through several years of their tumultuous relationship.

“There are few books or scripts that I’ve read that I’ve wanted to do more,” Mescal, 24, tells The Post “It’s an actor’s dream. The characters are people that you understand, and people that you feel are human beings rather than invented to serve a narrative.

“They really feel like people in the world that we live in — I just haven’t met them yet.”

The book, which garnered praise and social media posts from a wide range of celebrities including Taylor Swift and Emily Ratajkowski, is so popular that author Sally Rooney’s 2019 event at Brooklyn bookstore Books Are Magic had to be moved to a larger venue (the First Unitarian Congregational Society) to accommodate the crowds. But while neither of the “Normal People” stars had read Rooney’s book before their first audition, they both did so afterwards.

Marianne (Daisy Edgar-Jones) in “Normal People.”Hulu

“I just loved how odd Marianne was [in the script] and I thought she was really fun,” says Edgar-Jones, 21. “Then I read the book, and for me, that was the biggest thing. It’s my favorite book. I read it in literally an hour — it was mad! It touches on so many aspects of being a person, and you relate to both Marianne and Connell in so many different ways.”

The story begins when the two are in high school in rural County Sligo, Ireland, where working-class Connell is popular and wealthy Marianne is a prickly outcast. They hide their relationship from their classmates, since Connell is insecure about how it might impact his social status.

The plot later follows them to college, where their roles are reversed: Connell is out of his element at Trinity College in Dublin, while Marianne has a lively social circle.

Connell (Paul Mescal) and Marianne (Daisy Edgar-Jones) in “Normal People.”Hulu

“A few moments were very like ‘pinch yourself’ moments, because we were able to film in Trinity, which is such a beautiful place,” says Edgar-Jones. “I know that [author Sally Rooney] went there and so did [director Lenny Abrahamson] … and that was really cool because we were filming near their old campus, which is fun. It was my first time there.”

For Mescal, who graduated from Trinity in 2017, filming there was a return to his roots.

“It definitely felt full circle getting to work in the place that you studied, and to portray people that you felt you could have walked past,” he says. “It was really nice. And also Trinity is a beautiful campus, and it’s actually quite hard to be allowed to film in there, so it was a real privilege.”

Mescal says he’s ready to deal with the pressure that accompanies turning such a wildly popular book into a TV series.

“I think when characters are written so well, people are going to have strong opinions about it,” he says. “But ultimately that pressure is coming from a good place, because the audience of the book loves the characters so much and they want them to be portrayed in the right way.

“It’s about trying to harness that energy that the reader has in a positive way.”