Daisy Ridley became the new face of the Star Wars franchise after starring in the sequels, but after The Rise of Skywalker arrived in theaters, the actress admits that it wasn't easy to find work. In fact, before COVID-19 closed down Hollywood, she tells Entertainment Weekly that "nothing was coming through" in the months that followed the release of the Skywalker Saga finale.
"It was so sad to finish [Star Wars]," she tells the site. "When the film was released, I was like, 'Oh my God.' It was such a huge chapter. And, weirdly, the past few months of not having much. Obviously now it’s really nice to be working, but not having much [at the time] I feel like I processed the last five years."
"To be forced to slow down, it was good mentally for me because [Star Wars was] a big thing in my life," Ridley continued. "Weirdly, at the beginning of the year nothing was coming through. I was like, 'Aww! No one wants to employ me.'" The actress later 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."
Ridley later explained that things did start to pick up a few months after The Rise of Skywalker was released, and she's since booked roles in video game Twelve Minutes, Baby Yaga, an animated movie for VR platform Oculus Quest, and an original Audible series, Islanders. None of those are major roles, of course, so has being part of Star Wars damaged her career in the same way it did Hayden Christensen's?
It's too soon to say, but the goodwill many fans and moviegoers had towards Ridley was sadly diminished somewhat due to the response to The Rise of Skywalker, a mostly disappointing finale.