Daisy Ridley Admits She Didn't Get Many Job Offers After The Star Wars Sequel Trilogy

Bill Watters. Getty Images.

Variety- Despite the popularity of Disney’s “Star Wars” franchise, Daisy Ridley says her career stalled when she finished her run leading the film trilogy with 2019’s “The Rise of Skywalker.”

“There weren’t that many offers coming in,” Ridley said during a Sunday panel at SXSW in Austin. “It’s not that there wasn’t any… I remember finishing and thinking, ‘Oh, it’s quiet and strange.'”

After eight years of playing Rey, Ridley and the rest of the world went into lockdown due to the COVID-19 pandemic, and the entire film and TV industry shut down. During that time, Hollywood wasn’t making anyone offers. “So it was a very strange time to sit with the quiet and, honestly, grieving a time of my life,” she said.

There has been debate of a "Star Wars Curse" in Hollywood for a long time. Despite the success of someone like Harrison Ford after starring in the original trilogy, names like Mark Hamill and Carrie Fisher were too commonly associated with their characters from a galaxy far, far away to get a ton of acting work elsewhere after the Empire was defeated. You could even argue that Hayden Christensen struggled with this following the prequels as well, though Natalie Portman and Ewan McGregor's career trajectories just kept going up.

When the dust settled over the incredibly polarizing Star Wars sequel trilogy, I was curious which actors would be hit with the "curse" and which would be safe - and it was clear that Oscar Isaac/Adam Driver would be alright immediately, but Daisy Ridley? She didn't have as many offers coming in….

Ridley did a panel at SXSW this weekend where she basically said it wasn't like there were no offers on the table, but it was surprisingly quiet on that front following production on 'The Rise of Skywalker'. 

That's a shame, and pretty surprising to me - because I thought Daisy Ridley gave some incredible performances as Rey no matter how you feel about the movies. She did the best job imaginable with the material that she was given, and is easily the highlight of all three movies alongside Adam Driver. She acted the fuck outta those parts and I really believed she was gonna be a megastar after her Star Wars commitments were wrapped up….but clearly she got hit with a little case of the Star Wars Curse following Episode IX. 

Either that or her agent just SUCKS - because the only thing I can remember seeing her in aside from Star Wars was 'Murder on the Orient Express', which was….not great! 

Dave even thought he saw her portraying Rey at DisneyWorld last year….

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….and while times haven't gotten that tough for her yet, she's coming crawling back to the franchise later this year.

Hopefully her return as Rey in the upcoming Star Wars spinoff film turns things around for her, and reminds the world that she's got some serious acting chops - even if she's holding a lightsaber. If not - oh well, you can still make millions of dollars as a Jedi, and that doesn't sound too bad either!