In a new interview with IGN, Daisy Ridley has shared her reaction to Adam Driver’s The Hunt for Ben Solo film, and said the reaction from fans has been heartening.
“I knew a piece of it. I heard rumblings,” Ridley shared of her reaction to Driver’s news. “I have lots of friends who are crew, so things always travel like that. But, whoa! When the story came out, no, I was like, ‘Oh, my God!’ And it was him that said it, right?”
“Him” being Driver, who is notoriously quiet about all things outside of formal press junkets. She continued, “It was funny because, like, ‘Oh, wow, Adam is saying it,’ and that’s the big surprise of the year,” she laughed.
With Star Wars fan discourse, especially about the sequels, always divisive, Ridley said witnessing the outsized reaction has been heartening.
“I do love when there is a collective of positivity,” she said about the consensus of everyone who seems to want The Hunt for Ben Solo to happen. “The way the internet seems to have rallied to try and get it to happen. I think one), it’s fantastic for us all. It’s good for us to all be united about something in a really positive way. Obviously, everyone knows he was a very popular character, but it was also lovely to think, ‘Wow, people really, reallycare and want this.’ I just… I like it. I like when people join forces — excuse the pun — from all around the world, all different sorts of people. I just love that the Star Wars fandom is such a huge and gorgeous array of different points of view and different people, and the fact that everyone is really behind this thing, I think, is just sort of lovely, in a time that is so f***ing nuts for probably every single person on this Earth. I think it’s wonderful. So I was surprised, and honestly, I felt joyful about how it went down.”
Asked if it’s galvanized her to push harder for her Rey film, or if she’s learned to be patient with all things Star Wars, Ridley said she has trust in everyone still developing it and that it will be “worth the wait.”
“Honestly, there are scripts that I read five years ago, and now I’ve gone, ‘Oh, maybe they will actually happen,’” she said of many non-Star Wars projects she’s been attached to, including We Bury the Dead. “I think over the years, I’ve learned how the reality of getting any film made is so massive. The hurdles are vast… But with this particularly, I know that incredible voices and creatives are part of it, and I know the wait will be worth it.”
