No One Wanted to Employ Daisy Ridley After Starring in the Star Wars Sequels
The Star Wars sequel trilogy was beset with numerous problems.
And one of the bigger problems was acting of Daisy Ridley, who played its main character, Rey. Or, to be more precise, lack of acting on her part.
Sure, this is not the first time when accusations about absence of acting ability are thrown at a Star Wars lead actor.
Hayden Christiansen was severely mocked as well, and even Mark Hamill, back during the golden times of the original trilogy, was often considered to be passable at best (yes, later Hamill had some memorable achievements not related to Star Wars – but only as a voice actor).
Some might argue with low assessment of Ridley's ability, and bring up the fact that she got some awards for her performances.
But one objective indication that accusations may be true is the fact that despite just playing the main character in one of the biggest franchises ever, Daisy Ridley did not get showered by job offers after the sequel trilogy's conclusion.
She even spoke about that herself in an interview with Entertainment Weekly.
"Weirdly, at the beginning of the year nothing was coming through," she said. "I was like, 'Aww! No one wants to employ me.'" She even noted that "there were actually loads of things that I auditioned for at the beginning of the year and didn't get any of them."
Since the sequel trilogy's end in 2019, Daisy Ridley appeared in only one significant movie role: that of Viola Eade in Chaos Walking. And that movie was a huge flop. She also had some obscure voice roles.
However, now Daisy Ridley's fortunes seem to be changing. She is going to appear as the main heroine in three upcoming movies: Young Woman and the Sea, The Marsh King's Daughter and Magpie.
While none of those projects is high-profile, they may evidence that she is notably improving as an actress. At the very least, she's trying to expand her range of roles.
After all, as she also said in her interview, "To be forced to slow down, it was good mentally for me because [Star Wars was] a big thing in my life."