Daisy Head: ‘if I’m performing for a living, I don’t want my living performed’

It’s not every day you find yourself playing an evil sorceress scheming to take over the world, but it’s all in a day’s work for Daisy Head.

“I love channelling my inner villainy,” she laughs. “I think that’s such a beautiful part of what I’m able to do, that playing all kinds of different people and personalities makes my life all the more exciting and rich.”

We’re speaking on the eve of the launch of her new film, Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves, where she plays Sofina, the shaven-headed, magic-wielding villain of the piece.

That said, Sofina isn’t a cookie-cutter bad guy. “I think in order to portray a character, you have to find - not necessarily a piece of yourself in them, or vice versa,” she says. “But there just has to be something that tethers you to the role. So things like her perfectionism and her determination, and her passion and her loyalty are things that rang true with me. Less so, hopefully, her desperate need for acceptance and approval.”

With roles in this and Netflix hit series Shadow & Bone, Head is carving herself out something of a niche in the fantasy space. But that shouldn’t be a surprise: as the daughter of Buffy alumnus Anthony Head, she’s been on TV sets almost since she could walk.

“I grew up on the set of Buffy. What an incredible world to be a part of,” she says – Head Sr, of course, played Buffy’s mentor Giles for the whole five seasons of the show. “I just used to love being on set and just hanging out and watching the whole process. Being on set’s my favourite place to be, whether I’m filming or not.”

Though Head wanted to go into acting – “I felt it was already in my bones” – she treats it as a way to escape from the spotlight, rather than embrace it.

“When I say to people that I struggle to be the centre of attention as Daisy, people are like, ‘Well, you picked the wrong profession,’” she says. “But I’m like, ‘No, because doing what I do, I’m actually not Daisy. I’m presenting different characters.’”

When she was younger, she says, she took this to such an extent that she used to make her parents turn away and face the wall when she was giving recitals. Despite this shaky start, Head went onto train at the Dorothy Coleborn School of Dance before carving out a career in TV & film – joining hit series Harlots in 2019, and fantasy Netflix show Shadow & Bone in 2021 as mage Genya Safin.

With a father like Anthony Head, it’s hard to ignore the spectre of the dreaded phrase ‘nepo baby’, which has been doing the rounds on social media of late. However, Head is clear that having family in acting is less of a way in than people might think – though she’s aware how lucky she is to be in the same industry as many of her family.

“Just to be able to share that experience has been invaluable, absolutely invaluable. And we have done a lot of self-tapes together over the years. Him directing me; me directing him.” It sounds chaotic, I say, and she laughs. “It definitely has had its chaotic moments.”

Self-tapes aside, she says, it hasn’t had much of an impact on her career. “I think people are quite quick to think, you know, with our success, because my sister [Emily Head] is also in the industry, that there’s nepotism at play.”

“I can certainly speak for myself: that hasn’t occurred… people might be able to open doors for you. But if you can’t stand on your own two feet and produce what’s required, then you won’t be able to continue to pursue it.”

Ultimately, Head says, she’s learned to brush off the negative comments – something perhaps helped by the fact that she has no social media presence to speak of. “As a 12-year-old, when my friends were all joining Facebook, there was just something in me which found it completely contradictory to who I was as a person,” she says.

“And, you know, there’s a part of me that thinks, if I’m performing for a living, I don’t want my living performed.”

With Dungeons & Dragons wrapped, she’s off to Romania soon to start work on another project – but when I ask if she has any roles she’d love to play, the answer is no: “I don’t look at someone else’s work and go, ‘Oh, I wish that was me…’ I find it hard to see myself doing [something] that someone’s already done.”

That said, if a role in the much-rumoured Buffy remake ever came along, she wouldn’t say no. “Oh my gosh, now that would be amazing,” she laughs. Fingers crossed.

Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves is out now in cinemas