Spoilers for the first three episodes of Daisy Jones and The Six ahead.
In the book Daisy Jones and The Six Eddie is always at odds with Billy, annoyed that his ideas aren’t heard, and wishing he was in the spotlight. The first big breaking point for the guitarist in the book comes when Billy takes his guitar on stage, stealing his moment. However, in the show, that doesn’t happen early on, and instead, we find out Eddie’s anger toward The Six’s frontman stems not just from his need to be heard, but also from his love for Camila. That’s a major, major change in this book-to-screen adaptation, and Josh Whitehouse, who plays Eddie opened up about this big change, and the moments that lead to his character wanting to leave the band.
While chatting with Josh Whitehouse and the cast of Diasy Jones and The Six, I asked the Eddie actor about his character’s motivations, and why he hates Billy so much. He opened up about the evolution of his relationship with Sam Claflin’s character, noting the major change that Eddie is in love with Billy’s wife Camila.
I think that there's a lot of torment in Eddie's life, especially surrounding Billy, I think that he experiences a lot of envy. I think it starts out as respect and love. But you know, he keeps getting put down, he keeps getting put to the side. No one's taking him seriously. He works really hard on the music, he works really hard on the band. He's always been in love with Camila. There's so many things that he has kind of wanted and hoped for. And Billy, I think is just the main source of a lot of that going wrong for him. So I think that that that's kind of how it builds and becomes as intense as it does.
As someone who has read the book a couple of times, I quickly noticed the difference in Eddie’s motivations, and I clocked the addition of his love for Camila instantly. This adds an extra dimension to this one-sided feud, and it infuses Eddie’s anger with more meaning. You see him talk about being in love with Billy’s wife since they were kids, and how angry he gets when Billy cheats on Camila during The Six’s first tour. While chatting with W Magazine, Whitehouse spoke about the character’s relationship in the show, saying he liked to “play with interesting themes” and try to find “a good reason somewhere, deep down,” for Eddie’s resentment in the positively reviewed series. And I think between his performance, and the writing of the show, they pulled that off very well.
Personally, I loved this change in the show, and hearing Whitehouse explain his character’s reasoning helped me better understand where Eddie was coming from. In the book, Eddie is kind of a jerk, because all he wants is to lead the band. Knowing in the show that he also loves Camila, and really doesn’t like how Billy treated her, in the beginning, adds an extra level of complexity to the bandmates' relationship and makes it more interesting and meaningful.
To see how Eddie and Billy’s relationship festers throughout the season of Daisy Jones and The Six, you can stream new episodes of the 2023 TV schedule hit every Friday with an Amazon Prime subscription.
