Daisy Ridley’s career has taken off since Star Wars: The Force Awakens, becoming of the most sought after actresses in town. She’s got a lot on her plate already, including a possible new franchise in Chaos Walking, so who can blame her for seeing Star Wars: Episode IX as a light at the end of the tunnel? She tells Rolling Stone that she has no intention of playing Rey beyond the end of this trilogy. Here’s how the conversation went down…
“No,” she says flatly. “For me, I didn’t really know what I was signing on to. I hadn’t read the script, but from what I could tell, it was really nice people involved, so I was just like, ‘Awesome.’ Now I think I am even luckier than I knew then, to be part of something that feels so like coming home now.”
But, um, doesn’t that sort of sound like a yes? “No,” she says again, smiling a little. “No, no, no. I am really, really excited to do the third thing and round it out, because ultimately, what I was signing on to was three films. So in my head, it’s three films. I think it will feel like the right time to round it out.”
Now before you go thinking she’s got sour grapes or something, Ridley also said she would come back someday, maybe 30 years later like Harrison Ford, Mark Hamill, and Carrie Fisher have done.
And that should be fine. It does seem as if these characters are going to be given a break. Rian Johnson will be launching a brand new trilogy that will be divorced from the Skywalkers, and that should set up years of stories about characters we’ve never seen before. But just because Ridley says she’s done after her contract is up doesn’t mean Disney can’t lure her back with a truckload of cash.
The Rolling Stone piece is pretty lengthy and has a lot of little details about the movie. It’s worth a read if you’ve got the time.
