In the Envelope: The Actor’s Podcast features in-depth conversations with today’s most noteworthy actors and creators. Join host and senior editor Vinnie Mancuso for this guide to living the creative life from those who are doing it every day.
It’s been 10 years since Daisy Ridley became a household name thanks to her leading turn as Rey in J.J. Abrams’ “Star Wars—Episode VII: The Force Awakens”; she then went on to play the character in Rian Johnson’s “The Last Jedi” (2017) and Abrams’ “The Rise of Skywalker” (2019).
Since then, Ridley has flexed her acting and producing muscles in a myriad of genres, including indie dramas (“Sometimes I Think About Dying”), psychological thrillers (“The Marsh King’s Daughter”), and neo-noir (“Magpie”). Her latest project is Martin Campbell’s “Die Hard”-esque action film “Cleaner,” in theaters now.
“I would hope that, with every job I’ve done, I’ve become better,” Ridley tells us. “But I feel like I’ve always strived for my own best…. I’m always curious, and I’m always open. Honestly, at the root of it, I just fucking love films.”
On this episode of In the Envelope: The Actor’s Podcast, Ridley dives deep into her career, from her earliest acting school days to the challenge of returning to the “Star Wars” universe for “New Jedi Order,” directed by Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy.
Listen and subscribe to hear our full conversation:
Returning to the role of Rey has presented Ridley with a new set of challenges.
“The first three films, we did fairly close together in the grand scheme of things. So one of the things is: Do I remember how to be Rey? It’s been a while, and time has passed in [the ‘Star Wars’] world. So there are a lot of questions about what has happened in that time, both for me and for the character; that in and of itself feels like a challenge. And then there’s the fact that I’ll be working with different actors and different filmmakers, which brings up different things. And that is always progressive, I suppose, because it’s someone else’s interpretation.
There are so many different approaches when it’s a different team that I feel like it will already be a challenge to bridge the previous films and this one, because it’s been a long time. But it’s an exciting challenge—a great one—because every job is a ‘Who knows?’ You can have an amazing script, an amazing director, an amazing tick, tick, tick, tick, but you just don’t know what something might be. The potential is all there, but none of us knows [what will happen]. We do our work and we go home, and so much of it is in other people’s hands. It’s always a lesson in interpretation and point of view.”
“Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker” Credit: Pictorial Press Ltd / Alamy Stock Photo
Ridley has developed a process based on what she’s learned from other actors.
“Something Tom Hanks said a director told him: ‘Learn your lines, be on your mark, and have an idea.’ So I always do that. But it’s also about learning to be very comfortable with trying other things and knowing that, as an actor, you’re at the behest of a director’s vision. So much of it is just being open to the people you’re working with.
Ben Mendelsohn comes to mind, because there are also some actors where the chemistry is just so real and, a lot of the time, undefined. Sometimes you work with people whose energy is so palpable; then you’re just strapping in for this amazing thing of where it might go.
There was a moment in ‘The Marsh King’s Daughter’ where Ben was playing my dad and we hadn’t seen each other in a long time, and my character thinks he died. It was just a moment where he came into this cabin; I turned to see him, and I literally got goosebumps when he stepped into the room. And I mean, what you can’t prepare for is that there’s just something magic about Ben; there’s something magic about all of us. I remember thinking, Oh, my God. Like, physically, I was so overtaken by his presence. It’s also wonderful to think, OK, I don’t know where this is going to go, but I’m good to go.”
Before she broke out in “Star Wars,” Ridley spent years hoping that her chance would come along.
“I always believed that I would work, in whatever capacity that was. Of the however many auditions I did, I obviously didn’t get a lot of them. The disappointments are crushing, but I learned that you can only do what you can do. It’s not just: Did you do a good job in the audition? And particularly having been on the other side of it now [as a producer, I know what it’s like to] audition people. There is just an energy sometimes that feels right for the role, when probably 1,000 people could do a role very, very, very well. It’s just that, in that particular moment, on that particular day, it was something outside of all of that nabbed it [for that actor].
So I was disappointed, but I was not disillusioned. I hoped and I hoped and I hoped. One of the big crushing moments I had was when I’d auditioned for this show and got what was supposed to be a three- or four-episode part. I quit my job at the pub I was working at; and I was doing what was supposed to be one of my final shifts, and got a call on my break.
My agent said, ‘You might want to sit down: They cut the role entirely.’ And I remember being devastated and having to go back into the pub and go, ‘Can I have my job back?’ But even then, I believed that I would work. So ‘Star Wars,’ in terms of size, obviously, feels like a different thing now. But at the time, I just wanted to work.”
This interview has been edited for clarity and length.