Having had the term “toxic fandom” coined around their poor behavior, it’s no secret that some sectors of “Star Wars” fandom have been rather belligerent. Many were up in arms about Rian Johnson’s “The Last Jedi” and even J.J. Abrams’ “Rise Of Skywalker,” which no one seemed to enjoy fully. Asked about the fan backlash to “Star Wars” on the Happy Sad Confused podcast, Daisy Ridley suggested it was both distressing and part of the gig. Not to mention, she seemed to be aware that most of the audience is cool, but it’s the small vocal naysayers who are very loud about everything.
“I think it’s still upsetting because you don’t want people to feel like you’ve, like, not served the thing that they’re a fan of, But Rian’s one was so divisive,” Ridley said. “So it really felt like the first one was fairly… everyone was responsive in a similar way. And then Rian’s one, super divisive. And then the last one, super divisive.”
But, ultimately, Ridley said her feelings about the films “didn’t change how I felt about it.”
She was also asked about the controversial Rey/Kylo Ren kiss in “Star Wars: The Rise Of Skywalker,” which also deeply divided fans and was seen in some corners as cheap fan service.. But Ridley ultimately defended it and revealed it was done in reshoots.
“I felt like we all… it felt earned, and what was interesting [was the] intentionality. My feeling in that moment was that it was a goodbye, so that felt earned. Because, I mean, you could call a kiss a thousand things, but I felt like it was a goodbye, and that whole scene felt so emotional. I felt like I was saying goodbye to the job.”
To that end, with reshoots, Ridley recalled some of the patchwork nature of the filmmaking. “Actually we had to pick up something that was missed,” she said. “So my very, very, very last day, we were doing various pickups and stuff, I had to literally sit and look, and the camera was coming away from me, and—I guess I was looking at him—J.J. Abrams was like ‘you good?’ and I immediately started crying my eyes out, because it really felt like goodbye.”
Ridley also said she hopes her wrap speech on “Rise Of Skywalker” never gets out there because she was an emotional mess, weeping through her entire goodbye and thank you speech to the cast. “It was such an embarrassing wrap speech,” she lamented. “Somebody’s recorded that somewhere,” she said. “Btw, I was like, don’t give me the mic, J.J.!”
Something tells me that one should stay hidden in the annals of private home videos for the sake of not giving toxic ‘Star Wars’ fans ammo.
Meanwhile, in a separate interview with Inverse, Ridley said she had to “grieve” when “Star Wars” was over; it shocked her system.
“After the last Star Wars came out and everything was quiet, I was like, ‘What the f*ck?’” Ridley recalled, “I was grieving.” Then, COVID and the lockdown came along, and “having to sit and just be still in lockdown was incredibly helpful, in a way I hadn’t anticipated. I realized there was a lot that I hadn’t processed properly.”
It sounds like an emotional end to it all that she’ll pick up again soon with the Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy-directed “Star Wars” movie. Check out the entire HSC conversation below.
