Daisy Ridley: 'Carrie Fisher helped me cope with the pressure of sudden fame'

The veteran Star Wars actress gave Ridley some much-needed advice before her death 
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Alistair Foster13 November 2017
The Weekender

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Daisy Ridley says advice from Carrie Fisher helped her cope with the pressure and sudden celebrity of appearing in Star Wars.

The actress, 25, made her breakthrough in 2015’s The Force Awakens alongside fellow Londoner John Boyega.

She returns as heroine Rey in The Last Jedi, which is released next month, but will have fewer scenes this time with Boyega’s character, Finn.

She told Elle magazine how they supported each other on their blockbuster debut — and about her doubts over her own performance in the first film.

Journey: Daisy Ridley in her shoot for Elle magazine
Liz Collins/ELLE UK

She said: “It’s not this big adventure that I’m on with John [unlike in the first movie].

“I was thinking I did the first one because I didn’t really know what I was getting myself into and I was having loads of fun, and suddenly [with the second] I’m realising what this actually is, and I can’t f****** do this.

“I’m highly dramatic — so it’s all, ‘Oh my God’. Finally I was like, ‘Oh yeah, this is working’.”

She added: “I didn’t think I was good in the first film, and I was struggling with that.”

Ridley worked with Fisher on the two films, and revealed that the late actress — who came to fame in the franchise in the Seventies as Princess Leia — told her not to shrink away from success but to enjoy it.

She said: “And that was wonderful. At work, you’re normal, you’re not the anomaly, unlike in other situation

Read the full interview in the December issue of Elle UK, on sale tomorrow.

Daisy Ridley - In pictures

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