Daisy Ridley Says It’s ‘Important’ ‘Star Wars’ Actresses ‘Tune Out’ Negative Comments

“Try and be in the moment and enjoy what it is because life moves quickly,” Daisy Ridley told Variety

Daisy Ridley is looking out for the future cast of the Star Wars franchise.

The actress — who starred in The Force Awakens, The Rise of Skywalker, and The Last Jedi — is sharing advice for other franchise actresses, and encouraging them to stay away from the dark side of feedback.

“The world is a crazy place,” Ridley told Variety at the Sundance Film Festival. “It’s important to tune out the stuff.”

“Not just with Star Wars, but with everything,” Ridley continued. “You try and be in the moment and enjoy what it is because life moves quickly.”

Ridley’s comments come as two actors are set to have starring roles in a pair of upcoming franchise series on Disney+ — Amandla Stenberg in The Acolyte (who identifies as non-binary) and Rosario Dawson in Ahsoka. Leslye Headland also developed The Acolyte, which is said to take place a century before the events of The Phantom Menace.

“Everyone knows how things are and how they can be,” Ridley said about the huge public reaction to appearing in the Star Wars franchise in the age of social media. “We’re all living in that, with people saying more than they need to and commenting more than they need to. It’s so individual.”

Her advice: “Find the good in it all and enjoy it.”

“Amandla Stenberg can handle herself,” added Ridley. “She’s been working for a long time. I sat next to someone at the Wakanda Forever premiere, an executive, and they said [The Acolyte] is amazing.”
Ridley’s Star Wars trilogy wrapped in 2019. More recently she’s focused on other projects like her latest film Sometimes I Think About Dying. The actress promoted the movie at Sundance, which also stars Bree Elrod, Brittany O’Grady.

“I knew we made a good movie, but it was strange,” Ridley told Variety of the film. “When you know what’s coming, it’s like, ‘How are people going to receive this?’ It was nerve-wracking for me because my storyline is away from the laughs, so I hoped people would still be into it.”

Despite Ridley’s warnings about the pitfalls of appearing in Star Wars, the franchise universe continues to grow — as does the number of stars wanting to appear in it.

Back in September, Christian Bale elaborated in a Hollywood Reporter discussion about his long-held desire to become involved — even if it meant playing a side character who essentially already exists in the series.

“All I ever wanted in Star Wars was to be in a Star Wars outfit and hit my head on a door or something as I walked through,” Bale said, referring to a background actor dressed as a Stormtrooper hitting his head on a door frame in the 1977 film.

“The real nerds who watched Star Wars way too many times always knew about that one scene. I wanted to be that guy. That was it,” Bale said.

At the time, Bale explained that he knew Lucasfilm President Kathy Kennedy and was deep in his fanboy era as a kid. “But look, if I’m fortunate enough to be more than that, oh man, yeah. What a delight that would be. I’ve still got the [action] figures from when I was little,” Bale said.