Daisy Ridley trades in her lightsaber for goggles in her new film Young Woman and the Sea, and she was asked if her Star Wars training helped to prepare her for the role, and if she’d like to see John Boyega reprise the role of Finn in the New Jedi Order film.
Ridley plays Trudy Ederle, who made the 21-mile swim in 1926 and broke down barriers for women in the sport along the way, but whose story is not commonly known. At the Los Angeles premiere on Thursday, Ridley told The Hollywood Reporter that she wasn’t much of a swimmer before the project, acknowledging, “I would walk into a pool and I would stand there, and sometimes I would do a hold my breath competition, but I had never done a full length of the pool. So the first time I got in the pool and tried to, I stood up halfway and was like, ‘I actually can’t do this.’ And then I had to try very hard in order to adequately portray Trudy.”
After starring as Rey in the Star Wars trilogy The Force Awakens, The Last Jedi and The Rise of Skywalker, Ridley is no stranger to stunt work and physical scenes, but said this experience was “just so different.”
“I feel like, generally, the stuff I learned for Star Wars is transferable; I did an action movie [Cleaner] before Christmas with Martin Campbell, had to really beat some people up, and you’re learning new skills but they’re transferable, what you already have,” she explained. “But swimming is just a different thing, so it felt like really starting at the beginning. And I remember a month into filming thinking, ‘Oh, I think I’ve actually figured out how to swim,’ but it takes a while.”
Ridley admitted, though, she didn’t suddenly unlock a lasting love for swimming, joking, “I’m so thrilled to be part of this story, I’m so thrilled to play Trudy, what she did is amazing, and I don’t need to swim anymore. I’ll watch people swim and cheer them on, can’t wait for the Olympics.”
One thing the actress will be doing is returning to Star Wars, with a film set 15 years after the events of The Rise of Skywalker, directed by Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy. Asked if her co-star John Boyega will also be joining her in the new film she played coy; does she want him to be a part of it? “Absolutely, of course,” Ridley said of the two being back together. “It feels like we should, yeah.”
Director Joachim Rønning sang Ridley’s praises on the carpet, calling her “a force of nature” and applauding her commitment to the character.
Young Woman and the Sea opens in select cinemas May 31st, 2024.
Image: Getty Images
