
Daisy Ridley plays one of the lead female characters of the most recent Star Wars movies. If you have ever seen the Star Wars sequel trilogy: The Force Awakens, The Last Jedi, and The Rise of Skywalker, then you are probably familiar with her and her work. As the daughter of a Star Wars fan, I was also familiar with her and her work as early as 2015. That is when she first entered the Star Wars franchise as the character of Rey.
Over the years, the Star Wars franchise has introduced a lot of female characters to their audience in their movies. There have been many others before her. The most memorable of course being Princess Leia. While this is true, Daisy Ridley’s character Rey stands out because of how independent, skilled, scrappy, and though she is. It is not often we get to see a female character in any movie take on a role like this, so it is pretty awesome to see one in one of the most amazing movie franchises there are.
Ridley’s journey to becoming the eventual Rey was pretty crazy. From what she did before the rolse, finding out she had the role, training to be a jedi, and more, it was definitely an interesting ride. So, in this article, we will review her journey to getting to that point along with other interesting information. Interested? Keep reading below!
Ridley’s Early Life and Career
Daisy Ridley was born on April 10, 1992 in Westminster, a small London borough. As the youngest of three daughters, I’m sure Ridley had no problem stealing all of the attention away from her sisters, which was only practice for when she stole the attention at her later Star Wars auditions. As the daughter of two working parents though, her father a photographer and her mother a banker, there probably wasn’t much attention to steal. If you are wondering where she got her acting chops from, it definitely wasn’t from her parents. Her paternal great-uncle, however, has much more experience in the industry during his time. He was a playwright and actor who notably played Private Godrey in the sitcom Dad’s Army. So, I guess you can say that acting wasn’t new to the family.
Ridley’s Childhood
Growing up, Ridley has said that her favorite film was Matilda, a 1996 adaptation of Roald Dahl’s children’s story. This is a movie that many children grew up watching and have loved including me. She also names the main character of the film as her role model as a child. Today, most young girls look to Billie Eilish and how she impacts women, which you can read in this article. However, as a child back in the 90s, Ridley says that she did not grow up as a Star Wars fan, but she did dedicate her childhood to following the Harry Potter series.
For school, she went on to attend Tring Park School for the Performing Arts in Hertfordshire. She learned here from ages 9 to 18. She also attended the University of London for a while taking small classes until she dropped out to focus on her acting career.
Though acting was her goal, it took a while to get to the big screen. So, Daisy Ridley took up a couple jobs as a barmaid for some London pubs and later went back to school for a while.
Beginning Her Career
Her acting career began with minor roles on television shows like Youngers, Toast of London, Silent Witness, Mr Selfridge, and Causality. She also got a few roles in short sci-fi films like Blue Season and other films like the third Lifesaver and Scrawl. Surprisingly, Ridley even tried her hand as an actress in a music video for Wiley’s “Lights On” before she began working on Star Wars films.
Star Wars Casting
It wasn’t until April of 2014 that Rey was announced as the lead actress who would go on to play Rey in The Force Awakens. Casting for the film took place earlier that year in February of 2014. This was an amazing big break for her, an actress so young and who’s never worked on something so big.
Rolling Stone once even referred to her as a “total unknown” in an article about her and the movie.
The choice to cast a non-famous actress like Daisy Ridley as Rey is similar to George Lucas’s choice to do the same in the first Star Wars film.
The character of Rey is strong and independent like we mentioned before. These are also qualities that Ridley struggled with as an actress. According to US Weekly, Ridley feels that as an actress she’s too aggressive. Ridley has said “I’ve been told that I’m intimidating [in other films]. I was having my hair done, having my wig put on [in other films]. I remember thinking, ‘God, should I be smaller? Should I be quieter?’ … I’ve been called aggressive, too; my energy is ‘quite aggressive.’ That was during a meeting with a director [in another film outside of Star Wars].” While this was a quality that Ridley was always insecure about, it worked out in her favor. Her aggressive and intimidating attitude was exactly what the directors were looking for during the casting process.
Becoming Rey
She began filming in May of 2014. Ridley says in interviews that she began stunt training just a few weeks after finding out she got the part. Ridley has never done stunt training prior to her role in The Force Awakening, so it was all new to her. She had to get on a strict schedule to train for her role too. She says that for 4 hours a day, for 4 days a week she has to engage in kickboxing and climbing. While filming in the desert, Ridley also explains how crazy the set explosions were. I imagine it as having real life fireworks going off all around you and super close. That would obviously be incredibly terrifying already, but having to stay in character while doing it would just make it 10x worse.
After Filming
It was all well worth it though. Ridley says when describing how awesome it feels to be a part of something that everyone loves and wants to see.
Before the film’s release in December of 2015, she appeared at the launch of a set of Star Wars postage stamps issued by the UK postal service. Her character Rey was featured on a stamp along with the droid BB-8. With an international revenue of over $2 billion, The Force Awakens certainly became a major box-office hit and one of the highest-grossing films of 2015.
Ridley’s performance received critical acclaim.
Richard Roeper, an American columnist and film critic, describes her portrayal as “a breakout performance” and adding “[Harrison] Ford has a terrific father figure chemistry [shared] with Ridley and [John] Boyega.”
This acclaim did wonders for Ridley and her career and launched her into several different movie roles outside of the Star Wars franchise.
Daisy Ridley Is A Hero To Many Young Women
In the same way that Ridley looked up to the character of Matilda in her favorite film as a child, many young girls look up to Ridley today for her performance in Star Wars films. Her character’s tough and independent attitude made her so likable to audiences and made her stand out from other Star Wars characters. The time and effort she put into stunt work and training paid off considering how many people saw her kick the butts of many enemies and lived through it all. That is the type of role model a lot of girls look for today.
Will Ridley continue with the Star Wars franchise? That is unknown. But her recent work with them will definitely hold a special place in young girls’ minds.
Want to read about more ways famous women are inspiring their female fans?