From Jedi to Cage Fighter – Daisy Ridley on MMA’s Intensity: “I Struggled to Watch”
Daisy Ridley studied mixed martial arts fights for her role in the upcoming British action flick Cleaner.
Best known for her role as Rey in the Star Wars sequel trilogy, Ridley will return to her action roots in 2025 as Joey, a skyscraper window cleaner who battles terrorists who have taken over an office building in London. Of course, Ridley’s character is not any ordinary window cleaner. She’s also an ex-soldier with a particular set of skills that make her a nightmare for people like the film’s main villain, played by the always-intense Clive Owen.
To prepare for the role, Ridley tried to take in as many MMA fights as possible but found herself struggling with the sheer brutality of it all.
“I tried to watch MMA fights,” Ridley, 29, said in a recent interview with UPI. “Honestly, they’re so violent I struggled to watch that many of them.”
In the end, Ridley got enough knowledge from watching MMA to know exactly how she wanted to play Joey.
“That level of aggression and that level of being very in your body, that was really the thing that was driving me physically for her,” Ridley said. “One of the fights particularly is in a really contained area. So trying to figure out how to realistically battle someone while quite restricted physically was a challenge.”
Daisy Ridley will return to the star wars universe and kickstart a new jedi order
It’s certainly not the first time Ridley has had to get physical for a film role. Of course, she appeared as (spoiler alert) Rey Skywalker throughout Disney’s Star Wars trilogy, The Force Awakens, The Last Jedi, and The Rise of Skywalker.
She’ll return to the role in the recently announced Star Wars: New Jedi Order which is expected to come out around Christmastime in either 2026 or 2027, though no official release date has been announced.
Since her time battling Kylo Ren and the First Order, Ridley has taken on other physical roles, including her performance as English Channel swimmer Trudy Ederle in last year’s Young Woman and the Sea.
“Of course, there’s always physicality that lends itself to the role,” Ridley said. “But the films that I get to do the physical stuff on screen are always great and always a challenge, but I’m also particularly tired when I finish those ones.”
Cleaner hits movie theaters on Friday, February 21. Check out the official trailer below:
