Daisy Ridley almost quit 'Star Wars' after 'pretty horrid' first days

Daisy Ridley almost quit the Star Wars franchise just a few days into shooting The Force Awakens.

Ridley, who turned 23 during filming on the blockbuster and only had a handful of credits before landing the part of Rey, recently admitted that she was so overcome with nerves and self-doubt that she actually felt sick.

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“It was pretty horrid. It was really scary. I felt just sick and I didn’t really know anyone yet. It takes me a really long time to settle down with people.”

“And I do remember being behind the speeder and there were loads of people there and somebody had an umbrella over me and even that, like, ‘Oh someone’s holding an umbrella over you? OK.’ And I remember thinking, ‘I can’t do it.’ Like I can’t do this, this is not right,” she recalled to the Happy Sad Confused podcast.

Ridley’s attempts to adjust to the production probably weren’t helped by the fact that co-writer and director J.J. Abrams called her acting “wooden” on the very first day, too.

“JJ… probably doesn’t remember telling me that my performance was wooden. This was the first day! And I honestly wanted to die,” Ridley told Glamour Magazine back in 2015. “I thought I was gonna cry. I couldn’t breathe. And there was so many crew there, because obviously all the creatures [had stand-ins], and there were loads of extra crew making sure everyone was safe because it was so hot. It was awful.”

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Clearly things got a lot easier for Ridley, as she told Happy Sad Confused that even though she voiced some of these worries she knuckled down, eventually started to bond with Abrams and became increasingly more confident in her talent.

We’ll get to see Ridley as Rey again when Star Wars: The Rise Of Skywalker is released on December 20.