J.J. Abrams is notoriously secretive with his projects. Yet, ahead of Star Wars: Rise of Skywalker's release, the writer/director and Lucasfilm revealed Daisy Ridley’s Rey would wield an awesome double-edged red lightsaber and don a dark hood fit for the dark side. While the shocking reveal of “Dark Rey” is void of context, it will be featured in the upcoming conclusion to the Skywalker Saga, and it sounds like Ridley loved exploring this new side of her character. In her words:
It's fun to play someone's best version, and then the worst. It's an amazing thing to do as an actress, but we can't do it often. [...] I felt very good. That's the most I can say, unfortunately.
What a great tease! Although the move feels uncharacteristic of Rey, Daisy Ridley found it to be a great experience for her to take as her Star Wars role soon reaches its end. Actors don’t often get to delve into tons of corners for a character before moving onto the next, but that’s the beauty of working on a trilogy such as this! From the looks of it, Rey has quite the unique story arc.
Daisy Ridley expressed to this to AdoroCinema (translated from Portuguese) as the movie heads to theaters in just about a month! The huge twist was first revealed on the D23 stage over the summer. The Rey actress even admitted she too was surprised J.J. decided to include the moment in the teaser, but loved seeing the audience’s uproarous reaction.
There are tons of reasons why Rey could go dark, most of which still leave room for her to be part of the light side by the end. She could have a twin or a clone, for example! Or maybe the scene is a dream sequence? Or is she going through an “emo phase” of sorts before coming to her senses. Who knows and why assume? Either way, we’ll get to see Ridley stretching her villainous acting muscles somehow.
Plus, if Dark Rey was chosen to be shown in the trailers we haven’t seen much yet, there’s sure to be even more juicy surprises in the movie. Going off what we know from the trailers, Rey will be even more in touch with the Force in The Rise of Skywalker, perhaps received a pep talk or two with the late Carrie Fisher’s Leia, and be at odds once again with Kylo Ren for an epic lightsaber battle.
Rey’s story has certainly been the center of the new trilogy across the movies thus far. Rian Johnson’s The Last Jedi tampered with expectations as she was introduced to be “nobody” instead of from a famous family in the universe. J.J. Abrams said Johnson’s choices only inspired to be more risky with this one.
Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker comes to theaters on December 20.
