Star Wars: Daisy Ridley Reveals Advice J.J. Abrams Gave Her After Being Cast as Rey

Daisy Ridley first played Rey in Star Wars: The Force Awakens in 2015, and returned to the role in Star Wars: The Last Jedi and Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker. The actor was only 23 when she made her Star Wars debut, and now she’s heading back to the franchise in a new film about Rey that is set to be helmed by Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy. During a recent interview with Inverse, Ridley spoke about joining the franchise when she was younger and revealed the advice J.J. Abrams gave to her at the time. 

“Understand the scale,” Abrams told her when he offered her Rey. “This is not a role in a movie. This is a religion for people. It changes things on a level that is inconceivable.”  

“When all of the craziness was going on … I was like, ‘I’m good. I’m good. I’m coping fine. Everything’s fine.’ And I was fine, for the most part. But I think what I was really grappling with was that it was my normal, but it was not normal to other people,” Ridley explained. 

“For friends and family, or any people who see something in a slightly different way than you do, there’s this projection of you, and you in that world, and how it feels to do this and that … And you’re like, ‘Well, actually, I’m just a human being, separate from that.’ It’s quite this wrestle, of the reality and the fantasy that’s often projected onto you,” she added.

Will Other Star Wars Sequel Actors Appear in the Rey Movie?

Fans have been wondering if any other characters from the Star Wars sequels will be popping up in the new project, which Ridley recently addressed in an interview with Variety. 

“The short answer is I don’t know,” Ridley said when asked how the franchise’s first woman director will impact the franchise. “I’m excited to do the job, but not because Sharmeen is a woman. Her documentaries are amazing. Her idea for the story is cool as shit. No spoilers, but she gave me a rundown of the entire story. If it weren’t amazing, I would have been like, ‘OK, call me in five years.’ But it’s worthwhile.”

“No, because I don’t know what is what or who is who [in the new movie],” she added when asked if it will be weird to make a Star Wars without Adam Driver (Ben Solo/Kylo Ren), John Boyega (Finn), or Oscar Isaac (Poe Dameron). “So much has happened for me [since the Skywalker saga]. I feel like a grown-up now. When I first started, I was, like, 20. I was the youngest on set. It took me the first two Star Wars films to feel worthy of being there. Now I’m in my 30s. The whole thing feels quite different. I’ve been able to work with other filmmakers, and hopefully, I’ve got better as a performer.” 

“So I thought about it for a little bit and once I knew what the story was and everything, I knew it was something I really wanted to do,” Ridley shared in another recent interview with AlloCiné. “I think it’s a really fantastic exploration of the Star Wars world. It’s a really cool way of taking the story on in a bit of a different direction.”

Stay tuned for more updates about Star Wars.