“It’s not what I expected,” says Daisy Ridley as she offers a couple of her thoughts on her next Star Wars film.
The big reveal at this year’s Star Wars Celebration event was that Daisy Ridley would be returning to reprise her role as Rey Skywalker in a film currently slated for 2026.
While there are many out there that aren’t overly enamoured with the way the Rey’s story (and the entire sequel trilogy) concluded, a new film offers Lucasfilm a golden opportunity to take the type of creative risks that both the character and the wider films lacked throughout the sequel trilogy films.
Ridley has talked to Collider about the process of coming back to Star Wars, revealing that she only got the call a few weeks before the Celebration fan event where she was introduced to the world as the returning face of the franchise.
Says Ridley: “I was sh**ting myself before I went on stage, because no one knew I was going to that … No one knew I was going to Celebration, bar like [Lucasfilm president Kathleen Kennedy] and there were a couple of people. I was so nervous.”
She added, “It was such a wonderful reception. I’m very excited. The story is really cool.“
Bringing Ridley’s Rey back could certainly work in the hands of a gifted writer (and Peaky Blinders’ Steven Knight is surely that), but more than a few alarm bells are ringing regarding Ridley’s mention of the timeline of events.
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If the actor is telling it straight and she was only approached a few weeks before the film was announced, then Lucasfilm’s process is a strange one. As far as we know, the project has been in development for much longer, with Damon Lindelof and Justin Britt-Gibson submitting several drafts before exiting (with a public expression of frustration on the part of Lindelof).
That means that the studio was working for months on a Rey film (and planning a huge reveal at Star Wars Celebration) without first checking whether the actor who plays Rey wanted to reprise the role? It seems like an odd order in which to do things, but who are we to judge? After all, the film was announced and dated not longer after losing its writing team, so ‘odd’ (or perhaps ‘chaotic’) is simply the way things seem to happen over there.
Finally, when asked if the she thought the project would be the beginning of a trilogy, Ridley answered that she’s only aware of one storyline so far.
“I know the storyline for one film. That’s not to say that that’s all it is, but that’s what I was told about. And I imagine it will be the next film, I think. I mean, again, I don’t know, post strikes and everything, how quickly everything will start up again. But yes, so far, I know the story of one film and I think people will be very excited.”
Given the fact that she only became aware of that film mere weeks before it was announced to the world, there could be plans for more that Ridley is not yet privy to. We’ll bring you more news on this one (which will probably be a delay when you factor in the effects of the writers’ strike) as we hear it.
