“I actually can’t do this”: Despite Her Star Wars Action Scenes, Daisy Ridley Was Utterly Daunted By One Thing She Had to Do While Filming ‘Young Woman and the Sea’
Daisy Ridley had a really difficult time doing what her character in real life did the best. After all, it’s never easy to replicate one of the best swimmers in the world. The Star Wars actress has impressed everyone with her role as Rey.
Besides the Star Wars movies, she has also starred in the lead role in the movies, Ophelia and Murder on the Orient Express. The actress has seemingly been utterly dedicated to her upcoming movie, in recent weeks. She claimed that she had been ‘worked up’ throughout the shooting and hopes that her hard work will yield a favorable result.
Daisy Ridley Gave Her Best in Bringing Her Next Character to the Screen
Directed by Joachim Rønning, Young Woman and The Sea is a 2024 movie that is a tribute to the American Olympic champion swimmer, Gertrude Caroline Ederle. Daisy Ridley portrays Ederle in the movie.
Ridley was acquainted with action scenes when she was shooting for Star Wars, but those were no use for this movie because it was about a champion swimmer. She admitted that it was not at all an easy task to portray Ederle as she wasn’t much of a swimmer before the movie.
The movie actually required her to swim from one end of the pool to the other, which proved to be a difficult thing for the actress. Ridley told The Hollywood Reporter:
So the first time I got in the pool and tried to, I stood up halfway and was like, ‘I actually can’t do this.’ And then I had to try very hard in order to adequately portray Trudy.
It’s really appreciable how Ridley went out of her comfort zone to do justice to Ederle’s character in the movie.
Daisy Ridley Went Out of Her Way for Young Woman And The Sea
While shooting for movies like The Force Awakens, The Last Jedi, and The Rise of Skywalker, Daisy Ridley learned a lot of action moves. She trained hard to improve her fighting skills and the upcoming movie was no different. Although this biopic needed her to delve into a completely different realm, director Joachim Rønning claimed she was very committed to the character.
Rønning revealed how he wanted to keep most of the scenes as real as possible, and Ridley did not hesitate one bit. In fact, she swam until her lips turned blue and even did the wide shots despite having stunt doubles on the set.
Even in the wide shots I ended up using Daisy because she had this special, extremely forceful way of swimming that I felt none of the others could do. I ended up using her for everything.
The Maleficent: Mistress of Evil filmmaker called Ridley “a force of nature” and praised her for taking everything in stride without any complaints. Hopefully, the audience will also applaud her performance upon the movie’s release.
Young Woman and the Sea will be in theatres on May 31st.
