Daisy Ridley Couldn’t Get a Job After ‘Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker’; ‘No One Wants To Employ Me’
The most recent Star Wars trilogy was the last one in the Skywalker Saga, and it proved to be rather polarizing. Regardless, it introduced a lot of new fans to the franchise, brought back some familiar faces, and jumpstarted a new era of Star Wars content. Now fans have The Mandalorian, they finally got the final season of The Clone Wars, and it’s not stopping.
Despite all that success that is associated with it, Rey actor Daisy Ridley couldn’t get a job after the final film.
‘Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker’ ended this trilogy and a part of Daisy Ridley’s life
This new trilogy brought back a lot of beloved characters from the original trilogy like Leia (Carrie Fisher), Luke (Mark Hamill), and Han Solo (Harrison Ford). C-3PO was back and so was everyone’s favorite droid R2-D2. It also introduced viewers to Rey, an orphan from a desert planet who clings to the idea of the Jedi and finding her powers, much like Anakin Skywalker. And Kylo Ren joined the scene, trying to embody Darth Vader’s Dark Side, but was still conflicted beyond belief.
Over the course of three movies, those new and old characters tried to save the galaxy (some more) while Kylo Ren and the First Order tried to hold onto their grasp over it all. The movies showed that a lot of the Skywalker Saga is cyclical.
Again, regardless of its faults, it did bring Star Wars to a whole new group of people and gave nostalgia to the rest of the fandom.
“It was so sad to finish [Star Wars],” Ridley told Entertainment Weekly in an interview on Aug. 27. “When the film was released, I was like, ‘Oh my God.’ It was such a huge chapter.”
She also said that, because of COVID-19 shutdowns and more, she was able to “process” the last five years of nonstop Star Wars.
“To be forced to slow down,” she said. “It was good mentally for me because [Star Wars was] a big thing in my life.”
Despite her lead role in ‘Star Wars,’ Ridley couldn’t find another job
However, the pandemic isn’t the only reason why Ridley had so much free time. She also didn’t have any jobs lined up nor any coming down the pipelines.
“Weirdly, at the beginning of the year nothing was coming through,” she said. “I was like, ‘Aww! No one wants to employ me.’”
It also wasn’t for lack of trying. Ridley revealed that she was actively looking for roles post-Star Wars.
“There were actually loads of things that I auditioned for at the beginning of the year and didn’t get any of them,” Ridley said.
Ridley admitted that she did have a freakout moment, where she just went, “Oh my god!” However she took a step back, it seems, and told herself “Everything in its right time.”
And, with her newest role as a voice actor in the game Twelve Minutes, alongside James McAvoy and Willem Dafoe, she is starting to find work again.
“Things started picking up,” she said, referring to February and March.
Ridley was sad at the ‘Rise of Skywalker’ backlash, but she has something ‘dark’ ahead
As stated above, the last installment of the Skywalker Saga faced more criticism than the other two sequel trilogy films. And it did take a toll on Ridley. She told Entertainment Weekly in April that most of the feedback she received or read was “amazing,” but The Rise of Skywalker was “really tricky.”
“January was not that nice,” Ridley said. “It was weird, I felt like all of this love that we’d sort of been shown the first time around, I was like, ‘Where’s the love gone?’”
Regardless, it looks like things are looking up for Ridley. In addition to Twelve Minutes, she has a secret project coming up that’s a real departure from Star Wars.
“There’s one thing that I’m gonna do that’s super f***ing dark,” she said. “I was like, ‘Do we need something this dark?’ But it’s also really interesting and about memory and everything’s a bit fragmented. I definitely feel like what I wanna watch and I guess be part of is something with some joy. That’s what people need.”
Rey fans received good news in 2023 when Disney announced plans for a new Star Wars movie based on Ridley’s character. Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy (Ms. Marvel) will direct the still-untitled film based on a script by Steven Knight (Peaky Blinders).
