Daisy Ridley Developed Holes In Her Stomach Due To 'Star Wars' Anxiety

Daisy Ridley recently sat down for an interview with Inverse. The piece opens with the information that it’s been a full decade since Daisy was cast as Rey in Star Wars: The Force Awakens (2015). NOPE. I refuse to believe that (very straightforward) math.

Daisy was a relative unknown when J.J. Abrams offered her the job. She remembers he told her that she needed to “understand the scale” of the Star Wars universe: “This is not a role in a movie. This is a religion for people. It changes things on a level that is inconceivable.” Translation: Star Wars fans can be racist, sexist, and wildly toxic. Even with the warning, 21-year-old Daisy had no clue what was headed her way:

“When all of the craziness was going on,” she now recalls, “I was like, ‘I’m good. I’m good. I’m coping fine. Everything’s fine.’ And I was fine, for the most part. But I think what I was really grappling with was that it was my normal, but it was not normal to other people.”

Daisy coped by isolating herself from her loved ones:

“For friends and family, or any people who see something in a slightly different way than you do, there’s this projection of you, and you in that world, and how it feels to do this and that,” she explains. “And you’re like, ‘Well, actually, I’m just a human being, separate from that.’ It’s quite this wrestle, of the reality and the fantasy that’s often projected onto you.”

Eventually, the stress and exhaustion caught up with Daisy’s body. Things weren’t helped by the fact that she lives with both endometriosis and PCOS (represeeeent!). By the time The Last Jedi came out in 2017, Daisy’s anxiety was so severe that she’d developed holes in her stomach wall. HOLES. In her stomach wall.

The header pic was taken at the London premiere of The Last Jedi. In 2019, Daisy told GQ that, when she looks at the photos from that event, she notices that she was “so skinny” and her “skin was terrible”:

“My body was just f—ed up. I got tests done and it turned out my body was taking in no nutrients. I was just like a little skeleton and I was just so tired. I was becoming a ghost.”

Daisy made the wise decision to take a break. She spent six months at home focusing on familiar routines and self-care before The Rise of Skywalker started filming. Then, after the final movie came out in late 2019, she struggled to let go of the Star Wars mindset. Daisy compares the process to “grieving”. A few months later, the pandemic hit:

For Ridley, “having to sit and just be still in lockdown was incredibly helpful, in a way I hadn’t anticipated,” she reflects. “I realized there was a lot that I hadn’t processed properly.” As an actor, her job was to be surrounded by people all day. Returning home to “massive quiet,” she found herself at a loss as to how to proceed.

Daisy says her new movie, Sometimes I Think About Dying, filmed right out of lockdown, helped her reconnect with acting: “Everyone was thrilled to be together; the message I feel the film is sending is that connection is more important than everything.”

As it turns out, Daisy’s Star Wars journey isn’t over. Last year, it was announced that Rey will return in a new movie set 15 years after The Rise of Skywalker. It will be directed by Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy. Daisy expects filming to begin “sometime in the near future”.

31-year-old Daisy says, before Star Wars, she only ever wanted to be “a working actor,” and she still feels like she’s at “the beginning” of her career: “I’m really looking forward to what else might come up. I do feel like I’m open to many different things.” Hopefully, those things don’t lead to any more anxiety stomach holes.