Daisy Ridley

Daisy Jazz Isobel Ridley, born April 27, 1992, in Westminster, London, and raised in Maida Vale, London, is a British actress who achieved global superstardom virtually overnight as the lead of the Star Wars sequel trilogy, a franchise role that placed her at the center of one of the biggest entertainment franchises in history and required her to sustain the emotional, physical, and media demands of that position across nearly a decade with a grace, intelligence, and self-awareness that consistently impressed her collaborators and audiences. She grew up in a creative family in West London — her mother Louise was a bank manager and her father Christopher is a musician who spent time performing with Duran Duran's touring band — and studied drama and theater at Tring Park School for the Performing Arts in Hertfordshire, where she was trained in acting, singing, and physical performance. She made her professional debut in small television roles in Youngers (2013) and Silent Witness (2013) and had built only a modest career when she was cast by J.J. Abrams as Rey, the scavenger from the desert planet Jakku who discovers she is connected to the Force, in Star Wars: The Force Awakens (2015). The film opened to record-breaking box office of over 2.06 billion dollars globally and made Ridley one of the most famous actresses in the world essentially overnight. She reprised the role in Star Wars: The Last Jedi (2017) and Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker (2019). Away from the franchise she appeared in Ophelia (2018), Murder on the Orient Express (2017), Chaos Walking (2021), Sometimes I Think About Dying (2023, for which she received wide critical praise as a shy, isolated office worker), Young Woman and the Sea (2024, in which she played the historical American marathon swimmer Gertrude Ederle), and will return as Rey in an upcoming Star Wars film.