Daisy Ridley has sat down with Marie Claire to discuss how her acting career has affected her and the impact it has had on her family, as well as her future in film. She also discussed working on ‘The Rise Of Skywalker’ describing it as the best.
“The third one for me was the best,” says Ridley of shooting The Rise of Skywalker in the U.K. and Middle East. “It’s a big film for everyone. I did all of the emotions: I did frowns, I did smiles, it was the sort of biggest breadth, and I think that’s also why I had such a good time, because I got to do so much shit—like, physically, emotionally—and I got to work with so many people.” A six-day-long shoot of a fight scene between Rey and Kylo Ren (Adam Driver), teased in the trailer, was the most demanding week of the seven-month shoot, admits Ridley.
Water cannons blasted at them in chilly November U.K. weather, and Ridley relied on daily banana and peanut butter sandwiches and the fact that the lightsabers weighed less this time around. “If they had been heavier, I don’t think we would have been able to do it,” she says. “It’s just really epic.”
Also teased is a tearful embrace between Rey and princess turned general Leia, played by Carrie Fisher, who died after the filming of The Last Jedi (2017). The resulting scene is a creative manipulation of unused footage from that film and reshooting Ridley’s part of the sequence. The majority of filming took place at Pinewood Studios, 20 miles west of London, but in the Star Wars tradition of remote planet-like locations, two and a half weeks were spent in the Wadi Rum desert in Jordan. Ridley got to sneak off to Petra on the last day, narrowly missing flash floods in the ancient city, and the cast was invited to dinner with King Abdullah II and Queen Rania at the summer palace. “Rania is fabulous,” gushes Ridley. “She is so glam and so smart. She is all of the things I wish to be.”
For the full interview head over to the Marie Claire website, and also look out for the full interview in the Holiday 2019 issue of Marie Claire.
