Star Wars actress Daisy Ridley questioned herself after being dubbed ‘aggressive’ by a director

Star Wars actress Daisy Ridley says she questioned her enthusiastic approach to her work after being dubbed “aggressive” by a director.  

The 28-year-old Londoner was propelled to stardom in 2015 when she was cast as Rey, one of the lead characters in Star Wars sequel The Force Awakens.  

As well as appearing in the blockbuster science fiction series, Ridley took the title role in 2018 Hamlet reimagining Ophelia and starred in Sir Kenneth Branagh’s Murder on the Orient Express.  

But she says she was left contemplating her “passionate” approach to her work over fears about how she would be perceived, and was described as “intimidating” while working on new film Chaos Walking.  

“I was having my hair done, having my wig put on. I remember thinking: ‘God, should I be smaller? Should I be quieter?’”, Ridley told Tatler magazine.  

“I’ve been called aggressive, too; my energy is ‘quite aggressive’. That was during a meeting with a director.  

“I was thinking: ‘But why? Is it because I maintained eye contact? Is it because I’m passionate about what we’re talking about?’ I dunno. You have that horrible sinking feeling of, God, do I not come across the way I think I do?”

Ridley puts her rise to global prominence through Star Wars down to a “magical piece of luck”, but says it had a major impact on the public’s awareness of her private life.  

“When I signed on to Star Wars, there was nothing in my contract that said: ‘Your life will be talked about’”, she said, telling the magazine she has tried hard to keep her romantic life out of the headlines.  

“It got to the point where I realised so much of my life was out there”, she said.  

“People knew my mum’s name, my dad’s name, what my sisters do for a living. And I thought it would be nice to have something that’s for me, that isn’t for everybody else.  

“I just thought I would keep that separate.”

The actress, who grew up in Maida Vale, quit social media in 2016 and later called the platforms “highly unhealthy for people's mental health”.  

See the full feature in the February issue of Tatler available via digital download and newsstands on Monday 4th January. https://www.tatler.com/