At last, we’re now just days away from the release of Star Wars: The Last Jedi. It feels like forever ago that The Force Awakens arrived and restarted the intergalactic saga, reintroducing old friends like Han Solo, Leia and Luke and welcoming new leads like Rey, Finn and BB-8 aboard. In contrast to the largely warm and familiar Episode VII, though, The Last Jedi promises to be a very different beast which will push the franchise in a new direction.
This was definitely something that stars Daisy Ridley and John Boyega felt as soon as they first picked up writer/director Rian Johnson’s script for Episode VIII. For them, it was immediately jarring and a little scary to see that they would spend so much of the movie apart, seeing as the two actors had experienced a lot together while filming The Force Awakens.
Here’s how Boyega put it to The New York Times:
“It was horrible when I read the script for the first time and [Finn] wasn’t with her. We auditioned together. We went through this whole experience together. To be split apart was scary for me. But then I understood that is something that we could draw from — something that Finn really feels, and Rey really feels. And then I was like, ‘Oh! Rian does know what he’s doing.'”
Ridley went on to agree with what Boyega felt, going as far as to say that she welled up when she first got hold of the script. The actress joked that she managed to hold it together though, until she broke down in front of Johnson.
“I felt the same. When I read the script, I didn’t cry right away,” said Ridley. “I was like, ‘Wobble, wobble, wobble, [shaky voice] I’m probably going to cry and I need to see Rian.’ Then I went into Rian’s office and I was crying my eyes out. I’m not great with new people. I think Mark [Hamill] can attest to that.”
From what we know about The Last Jedi, there are few different things that could have left Daisy Ridley in tears. After months of wondering if Luke was going to swap to the Dark Side, the promotion for the movie has done a sharp swerve-turn recently to suggest that Rey might be the one to turn away from the Jedi’s path, instead.
Thankfully, it doesn’t sound like audiences are going to be crying at how bad the film is. Initial reactions to the movie have been overwhelmingly positive, with some calling it “mind-blowing” and “beautiful.” We’ll finally get to see for ourselves if that’s true when Star Wars: The Last Jedi lands in theaters on December 15th.
