'Chaos Walking': Daisy Ridley on her first post-'Star Wars' release — and why Tom Holland’s Spider-Man is 'historical'
Considering their enormous fan armies, you might as well call it When Spidey Met Rey.
The new sci-fi thriller Chaos Walking, directed by Doug Liman and based on the YA trilogy by Patrick Ness, stars Tom Holland as a young man on a distant planet where a freaky phenomenon makes the thoughts of men (but not women) audible, and Daisy Ridley as a space traveler who crash lands in their all-male village.
“Daisy was first in, she was very keen to do it, she wrote a nice long letter to me about wanting to play Viola, and then Tom came onboard, and then both of them went stratospheric,” Ness (A Monster Calls) tells Yahoo Entertainment in a recent virtual press day for the film (watch above). “So we were kind of lucky with the timing.”
Lucky in some of the timing, anyway. The project has been in the works since 2011, and Ridley and Holland joined the cast in 2016 — one year after she first arrived in a galaxy far, far away in Star Wars: The Force Awakens and the same year he made his debut as Peter Parker in Captain America: Civil War. Chaos was initially filmed in 2017, but then underwent reshoots in 2019, which had been pushed because of the stars’ mega-franchise shooting schedules.
Though long delays like that can be frustrating, Ridley has remained bullish on what’s clearly a passion project.
“One, I think it’s ultimately hopeful, and I think it’s nice to see hopeful films right now,” Ridley tells us. “Two, a lot of the themes present in it are still present right now, like gender politics, and I know Patrick’s likened the noise [the sound of men’s thoughts] slightly to social media and all of those things still really stand. But also it’s a really beautiful film, like the way it’s been shot is gorgeous, there are amazing action sequences, I just think it ticks a lot of boxes."
Ridley downplays her role in one the project’s biggest selling points, though, its union of two of the biggest action heroes on the planet.
“I’ve always felt really lucky because I never felt like anything was really resting on my shoulders, I always really felt part of a team,” Ridley says of Star Wars. “I always had John [Boyega] and then Oscar [Isaac] and Adam [Driver] and obviously [Harrison Ford] and Carrie [Fisher] and Mark [Hamill]. There were so many components to Star Wars that it never felt like I was out there by myself.
“And I know Zendaya is obviously a massive part in Spider-Man, too, but I think it’s different. He is Spider-Man in Spider-Man. It’s historical. Star Wars is historical, but I came in and played the new character of Rey. But that is intense. So I do not really understand what Tom has gone through. But he does it all with grace, he really does, he handles it all very well.”
Chaos Walking is now playing in theaters and IMAX (get tickets at Atom Tickets).
Watch Daisy Ridley clap back at Ted Cruz after obvious attempt at Rey diss:
— Videos produced by Jen Kucsak and edited by Jason Fitzpatrick
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