Star Wars: Daisy Ridley Said They Were “Toying” With Rey Being Obi-Wan’s Granddaughter

One of the lingering questions heading into Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker was the true identity of Daisy Ridley‘s Rey. As teased in the two previous flicks, her heritage was a “nobody,” per se — nothing but a child of intergalactic junkers. Then Episode IX and turned that notion on its head as it was revealed Rey was, in fact, the granddaughter of Emperor Palpatine. As Ridley herself says, it wasn’t always that way.

In fact, there was one point in the development of the sequel trilogy that Rey was going to be a descendent of Obi-Wan Kenobi‘s. That was eventually tossed out as the Lucasfilm Story Group continued working on the arc they wanted to implement throughout the three features. Tuesday night, Ridley appeared alongside frequent collaborator Josh Gad on Jimmy Kimmel Live!, where she spilled the details.

“No, at the beginning they were toying with an Obi-Wan connection,” Ridley said of the dangling plot thread. “There were different versions and at one point she was no one… it kept changing.”

Turning Rey into a Palpatine (Ian McDiarmid) left many Star Wars fans scratching their heads after the reveal as they wondered how the character could have survived the events of Return of the Jedi. According to McDiarmid, he wanted to put a line in Rise of the Skywalker to make it a little more clear.

“The cloning thing? Yes. Well, of course, there were all sorts of explanations for why I might return,” McDiarmid told the crowd at Comic Con Brussels earlier this year. “But it’s interesting because, I think I can reveal something, at one point the script had the line in that first scene with [Kylo Ren actor] Adam [Driver], when he says, ‘You’re a clone,’ and I said, in that original script, which is no longer with us, ‘More than a clone. Less than a man.’ Which seemed, to me, to sum him up, really. Because we know the camera has already snaked past the clone tank in which there are various versions of Snoke, that you probably noticed.”

The Star Wars sequel trilogy is now streaming on Disney+.

With The Mandalorian and Obi-Wan Kenobi both in development at Disney+, what other Star Wars shows do you hope to see on the service some day? Let us know your thoughts in the comments section!