Star Wars: Daisy Ridley Admits The Rise of Skywalker Backlash Was Hard to Deal With

It’s no secret that Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker was yet another divisive movie from that franchise in a galaxy far, far away. The ninth “episode” in the Skywalker Saga has the lowest Rotten Tomatoes score of any live-action film in the series and remains a sore subject for some fans, but in fairness also has earned praise from long time lovers of the series. So how did the response to the movie feel to the people that made it? Specifically, it’s star. Speaking on the new episode of the DragCast with Nina West, Rey herself Daisy Ridley made a rare interview appearance and got candid about the reaction to the most recent film and how difficult it was to deal with in her every day life. When asked how the fandom responses to Star Wars overall have changed her life, Ridley said:

“It’s changed film by film honestly, like 98% it’s so amazing, this last film it was really tricky. January was not that nice. It was weird, I felt like all of this love that we’d sort of been shown the first time around, I was like ‘Where’s the love gone?’ I watched the documentary, the making-of, this week, and it’s so filled with love; and I think it’s that tricky thing of when you’re part of something that is so filled with love and then people…You know, everyone’s entitled to not like something but it feels like it’s changed slightly. I think in general that’s because social media and what have you.”

Ridley opened up further about how she thinks social media has shifted fandom conversations, noting that the openness fans have on these platforms has made their discussions more open and more public than they ever might have been.

“If I went to a film and didn’t like it, I just wouldn’t tweet about it,” Ridley added. “But it’s such a conversation and it always has been. I guess now conversations are just more public, so there’s stuff I wouldn’t have seen, but honestly trying to scroll through my news feed in January and trying not to see Star Wars stuff, I’d see headlines and be like ‘Oh my god this is so upsetting.’ It’s been tricky but then it’s having that thing of I feel really proud of it, and I’m so thrilled to be part of it. But it’s a funny thing.”

The 28-year-old actress seemed to previously cast doubt on ever returning as her character for a future Star Wars movie, telling British GQthat she hadn’t ruled out returning to the role but that she currently can’t picture that happening.

“It felt like an end… I can’t actually imagine it right now,” Ridley previously said. “I don’t know what’ll happen in however many years.”

Despite The Rise of Skywalker serving as “the end” of the entire Skywalker Saga, it’s certainly possible that Lucasfilm could opt to return to the series with “Episode X” in a decade or more as each of the respective trilogies have been separated by a lengthy amount of time in the past. Perhaps Ridley will be interested in returning when or if that time comes.

Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker is available now on 4K, blu-ray, DVD, and Digital-HD.