Daisy Ridley’s stint in the Star Wars sequel trilogy shot her to instantaneous stardom. However, after her three-film run, her association with the franchise has become nearly intrinsic to her identity as a Hollywood performer.
In a recent interview, the 31-year-old actress reflected on this attribution, affirming that, although she’s showing different facets of her acting chops by committing to endeavors vastly separate from the beloved space opera franchise, the interlinking of her name to Star Wars will always be there.
She also shared what she believed would follow suit in her career after her tenure in the hotly-debated recent trilogy concluded. She related to a quote by MCU alum Robert Downey Jr., where he believed that despite having done an ample amount of work (and the best work) in the franchise, his efforts went unnoticed because of the genre and his embodiment of the character wasn’t deemed by people a ‘performance.’
Feeling similarly, Ridley believed Star Wars involved her doing many different things and helped her learn so much that it satiated her urge to scratch a particular itch. However, sooner or later, during the pandemic, she would yearn for work (beyond the multi-billion dollar IP) to make herself feel productive.
Daisy Ridley On Being Associated With Star Wars No Matter The Project She Embarks On
In an interview with IndieWire, where Daisy Ridley talked about her recent outing titled, ‘Sometimes I Think About Dying,’ she was asked to share her thoughts on the pre-eminence her name attaches to any project she embarks on.
In the headlines that her work in the Rachel Lambert-helmed romantic-comedy drama made, the term ‘Star Wars‘ actress’ was almost invariably attributed to Ridley. This is a common practice. Most performers who work on franchise projects frequently receive a label that confines their identity to those specific films.
Daisy Ridley has subsequently devoted to other endeavors after the sequel trilogy’s completion, but she is aware that it is unavoidable that the tag will always follow her. Although many actors would try to avoid being pigeonholed into one aspect of their filmography, the 31-year-old doesn’t necessarily see this negatively.
Nevertheless, she did affirm doing work beyond the franchise that she believes displays the other facets of her on-screen skills.
Following was her statement:
“I feel like it is what it is … I wasn’t setting out to do a big film as the first thing of my career, and all the cards fell where they fell. I think that has given me a platform and opportunities to do other stuff like this. I have an amazing team who are incredibly supportive of everything…”
She continued,
“I feel like I’m doing things away from [‘Star Wars’] that show different sides of me anyway. I think the association’s always going to be there, but I only really see it as a good thing.”
Earlier in the interview, Daisy Ridley also related her post-Star Wars experience to a quote by Robert Downey Jr. She referenced the Oppenheimer alum’s statement on the Literally! With Rob Lowe podcast, where he made headlines for saying, “I felt so exposed after being in the cocoon of Marvel where I think I did some of the best work I will ever do, but it went a little bit unnoticed because of the genre.”
The Chaos Walking star delved into how she didn’t feel compelled to scratch any particular itch, as being a part of the Star Wars trilogy allowed her to do so much work, satiating most of her professional urges. However, soon after, a year into the pandemic, she realized she yearned for something else.
Daisy Ridley Reveals What She Hoped From Her Professional Life After Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
When the Star Wars sequel trilogy concluded in 2019 with The Rise of Skywalker, the actress was asked what she anticipated following next in her career. “What I was looking for was really nothing in particular, yet everything in particular, if that makes sense,” affirmed Ridley. She then related to what Robert Downey Jr. said of his MCU stint, where his embodiment of the beloved superhero wasn’t treated like a prestige performance:
“I actually read something that Robert Downey Jr. said [recently]. He said he did so much work in [his] Marvel [films], but people almost didn’t look at it like a performance in the same way that they might’ve done if it wasn’t outside of that world.”
The actress was then implied to have felt similarly about her role in the Star Wars universe. Throughout the three films, we saw Daisy Ridley portray Rey, and she received tremendous praise for her embodiment, being deemed a breakout performer, even if the endeavors themselves are often debated amongst die-hard fans.
She admitted to IndieWire that her urges to work on something specific were satisfied because she had contributed so much to the space opera franchise. The experience taught her a lot, allowing her to commit to doing so many different things for only one role:
“It’s the scale and everything like that … But, I felt like I learned so much as an actor. I felt I learned so much just generally, and I felt like I was able to do so many different things in that performance that I didn’t feel like I had like, ‘OK, I want to scratch that itch.’”
Nevertheless, during the pandemic, she realized she was itching to work on other projects to broaden her horizons and increase her productivity, even beyond her tenure in the Star Wars film series:
“At that point, I was like, ‘I want to work. I would just love to work. I would love to go somewhere and feel productive in some way.’ I wasn’t looking for something in the way of, some people are like, ‘Oh, I did this thing, so I wanted to do this thing.’”
Daisy Ridley wasn’t looking into the future with a set plan of wanting to do a specific project just because she worked on Star Wars. Nevertheless, it doesn’t seem like the tag of a ‘Star Wars’ actress’ is going away anytime soon, given she’s slated to reprise her role as Rey in an upcoming untitled Star Wars film directed by Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy.
