Daisy Ridley has rejected a suggestion that she’s privileged for having attended boarding school while equating her upbringing to that of her Star Wars co-star John Boyega.
The 27-year-old was asked during an interview with The Guardian if she thinks her career has been “easier” thanks to potential “confidence” brought about from a private education.
“The privilege I have – how? No, genuinely, how?” she answered.
The interviewer Nosheen Iqbal wrote that Ridley then insisted there is little difference between her experience and that of her co-star John Boyega, who grew up in south London to British Nigerian immigrant parents.
“John grew up on a council estate in Peckham and I think me and him are similar enough that… no,” Ridley said.
Iqbal went on to write that she did not point out that members of Ridley’s family were establishment figures (her grandfather, John Ridley OBE, was head of engineering at the BBC from 1950 to 1965; his brother was the Dad’s Army actor and playwright Arthur Ridley), “while Boyega had to apply for a hardship fund to join Theatre Peckham.”
Ridley told Iqbal: “I went to a boarding school for performing arts, which was different.” Her publicist later called The Guardian to clarify that Ridley won a scholarship.
When asked if nine years of private education gave her some additional confidence, Ridley answered: “I’m not saying what you’re saying is wrong. I’ve just never been asked that before, so I’m like, ‘Oh. I don’t think so’.”
Instead, Ridley explained that it has taken her “a little while to be OK with it”.
“I was always fairly confident, and I think that comes from being part of a big family who are all quite chatty,” she concluded.
In other news, Ridley has recapped the eight Star Wars movies in a brilliant new rap.
The actor, who is set to reprise her role as Rey in Star Wars: The Rise Of Skywalker later this month, appeared on Jimmy Fallon to take the audience through a quickfire history of the Star Wars universe.
