With 'Rise of Skywalker,' Daisy Ridley and John Boyega say goodbye to 'amazing' 'Star Wars' run
NEW YORK – “John Boyega: the man, the myth, the legend.”
The 27-year-old British star of “Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker” (in theaters Thursday night) hops up on a sturdy windowsill during a photo shoot at a Manhattan hotel and playfully addresses his audience. There’s still the same humor but a little more fashion sense and gravitas to Boyega four years after first chatting with USA TODAY for 2015’s "The Force Awakens," when he joked that Harrison Ford was his best friend and did impressions of all his castmates.
Boyega’s co-star Daisy Ridley has grown as well. Right before “Force Awakens” opened, the then-unknown English actress was wowed by her face on a yogurt cup. Now, Ridley, also 27, is a full-on celebrity who's boarded big-time fare like “Murder on the Orient Express” and even played a Shakespearean heroine in “Ophelia.”
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Both of the youngsters who once had stars in their eyes arre now legit Hollywood stars, departing the “Star Wars” galaxy for new and uncharted waters.
Four years ago, Boyega says and he and Ridley were "fish out of water" and "quite fearful as to how this famous life was going to go down. I guess what's changed is that I realize what matters and what doesn't.”
Back then, Ridley says, she “felt a bit more like, ‘Ehhh, why is it me? Maybe you made a mistake.’ Now I have sort of half-convinced myself in believing that it's all good and that I was chosen for a reason, so I feel more confident in myself. And I feel just a bit more confident in navigating the whole world."
“Rise of Skywalker” director J.J. Abrams, who introduced Ridley’s Jedi-in-training Rey and Boyega’s Stormtrooper-turned-hero Finn in “Force Awakens,” says both are “so damn good.” When Abrams looks back on that film, he remembers Ridley “was a baby” but also “limitless in her ability.” And in “Rise of Skywalker," he adds, "it's a very complicated emotional story for her. She's got to do some real stuff and I knew she would be able to. Watching her in this movie blows my mind."
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In “Force Awakens” and 2017’s “The Last Jedi,” Rey’s “just been doing a lot of what other people said she should be doing,” Ridley says. “So this film is really her figuring stuff out for herself.”
Fans are still curious about Rey’s backstory and her parentage, even after archfoe Kylo Ren (Adam Driver) told her in “Last Jedi” that her mom and dad were nobody junk traders. “The thing that I've always said is I, Daisy, believe what Kylo said,” Ridley says. “Rey perhaps doesn't believe that. So that was something I sort of had to get my head around because I was like, ‘I guess Rey cares as much as the audience does.’
“It was also that thing of why can't she just be powerful," outside of any familial connections, Ridley adds. "This story does that an amazing amount of justice.”
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Finn’s background is also still a mystery, but his character arc has matured him far from the funny guy in “Force Awakens” who keeps trying to run from the fight.
In “Rise of Skywalker,” “I can just be consistently brave, like a proper hero,” Boyega says. “He's found his own identity. You don't find the Finn who's second-guessing whether he should be there or not. He's a Resistance member, that's his life and he would happily die for it.”
“Star Wars” for Ridley will always be that combination of awesome action and massive emotion, and as a performer, “it was like this insane opportunity that led me to an amazing group of people, an amazing role and an amazing experience.”
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Her IMDb page continues to build, with roles next year in the family film “Peter Rabbit 2: The Runaway” (April 3) and sci-fi movie “Chaos Walking” (2020), as well as teaming with Abrams again for a biopic on World War II spy Virginia Hall. Unlike when she was a fresh-faced galactic rookie, Ridley says, “I feel a bit more understanding of the whole process of making a film, selling a film, all of that stuff, which is to someone who hasn't done that before a very strange thing.”
“Star Wars” has been a film school for Boyega, too, and led him to start his own production company. Inspired by filmmakers Kathryn Bigelow and Jordan Peele, he wants to be a creative force for “original projects, new ideas (and) movies that people will watch in 25 years and be like, ‘When John Boyega or Daisy Ridley or whoever was younger, that's what they were a part of.’ ”
Boyega stars in Steve McQueen’s BBC period drama “Small Axe” and will film two Netflix movies in 2020, the sci-fi mystery “They Cloned Tyrone” and thriller “Rebel Ridge.” But he also looks forward to being less legend and more man in his post-“Star Wars” life: “Twiddle my toes on the concrete, know what the ground feels like for a consistent amount of time.”
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: 'Star Wars': Daisy Ridley, John Boyega depart with 'Rise of Skywalker'
