Daisy Ridley goes from Jedi mind tricks to the vastly trickier human mind

Q23:33Daisy Ridley: Sometimes I Think About Dying and landing her first big role as Rey in Star Wars

When Daisy Ridley got the call that would launch her career into a galaxy far, far away, she was at a friend's play. The English actor had some small parts to her credit, mostly for television, but she'd never starred in a movie before auditioning for the Star Wars sequel trilogy.

It was intermission, she tells Q's Tom Power in a recent conversation. "I had a missed call from an American number and I didn't know how to call America, so I was frantically trying to find out," she says with a laugh.

When Ridley finally returned the call, she received the incredible, life-changing news that she would play the lead character Rey, the budding Jedi Master. Then her phone died. So she spent the second half of the performance, a subway ride and the walk home just quietly internalizing this unfathomable new reality. 

No one around her could've guessed what she was going through. 

Funnily enough, Ridley's new film, the indie rom-com Sometimes I Think About Dying, tackles precisely this idea. Turning from the outer space escapades of the Skywalkers to an adventure through the equally perilous inner space of the human mind, Ridley's latest outing spotlights the complex interior life each one of us quietly leads.  

Ridley plays Fran, an office worker who feels isolated, anxious and stuck in her own head. Everything changes for the character, however, when a new colleague tries to coax her from her shell.

WATCH | Official trailer for Sometimes I Think About Dying:

"I'm not [Fran] … but there's something familiar about her," Ridley says. "I understood her difficulties and the sort of bravery it takes to overcome a social interaction that might make you feel uncomfortable."  

It is ultimately a story of "hope" and "connection," the actor tells Power.

"All of us are going through something," she says. "All of us are having a hard time. I play the quiet person in the office who's struggling to connect. There will also be the louder person in the office who talks a lot to cover up all the other stuff they're going through … We all show things in different ways, and we all hide things in different ways. And everyone's fighting a battle you can't see. So try to be patient and try to be kind and generous and compassionate."

The full interview with Daisy Ridley is available on our podcast, Q with Tom Power. Listen and subscribe wherever you get your podcasts.

Interview with Daisy Ridley produced by Vanessa Nigro.