By: Dominic Jones
Star Wars: The Force Awakens star Daisy Ridley spoke about her difficult first day on the set of the film in the recent issue of Glamour magazine. Ridley recalled receiving some constructive criticism from director JJ Abrams that was a little hard to hear for the relatively inexperienced star. Ridley told Glamour,
"JJ… probably doesn’t remember telling me that my performance was wooden. This was the first day! And I honestly wanted to die. I thought I was gonna cry. I couldn’t breathe. And there was so many crew there, because obviously all the creatures [had stand-ins], and there were loads of extra crew making sure everyone was safe because it was so hot. It was awful."
To be fair, I don't think JJ Abrams was doing anything wrong by saying this to her, he was just doing his job (directing). That being said, I totally empathize with Ridley. It's her first day on set of one of the biggest movies of all time (the biggest, if you ask Steven Spielberg), in a less than hospitable environment (the heat in Abu Dhabi), and the boss says you need to do better. It would be a tough situation for anyone. Now, based on what Abrams has said about Ridley since then, it sounds like she took his advice to heart and was able to change/improve her performance to reflect that.
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