Daisy Ridley developed 'leaky gut' in response to 'stress' of 'Star Wars' attention
Daisy Ridley ended up with a "leaky gut" because the "stress" of her sudden 'Star Wars' fame caused her to develop ulcers.
Daisy Ridley ended up with a “leaky gut” because of the “stress” of her sudden ‘Star Wars’ fame.
The 32-year-old actress became a household name when she was cast as Rey in 2015’s ‘Star Wars: The Force Awakens’ and her body developed a “very physical” response to the extreme emotions she was experiencing as a result of suddenly being thrust into the spotlight.
She told The Times about suffering from ulcers: “Oh, God! Essentially, it was a leaky gut.
“I was just knackered. I’d never travelled that much, or done press junkets, and my body deals with stress in a very physical way, so my gut was manifesting an emotional reaction to travelling around the world, people saying hello to me in the street. And me going, ‘What’s going on?’
“And worrying – ‘Oh s***, should it be me?’ or ‘Am I good enough?’. And I only really felt I was by the third film, ‘The Rise of Skywalker’. By then, I felt, ‘OK, I was chosen for a reason.’ But it took a long time. It was super intense.”
Daisy tried to shut out other people's opinions and just focus on her own work.
Asked how she coped with the stress, she said: “By focusing on the job at hand, rather than the feedback because, whether that was positive or negative there was a feeling of vulnerability.
“And I have a wonderful family and home life so I could come home and sit with my mum and cuddle the dog.”
The actress can next be seen playing Trudy Ederle, the first woman to swim the English Channel in 'Young Woman and the Sea' and she’s still nursing injuries from filming.
She admitted: “I’m still injured. From a scene when I’m being dragged unconscious. I pulled something, sort of in my chest and armpits. It was two years ago, still not right.”
Despite the subject of the film, Daisy wasn't a strong swimmer when she signed up for the project.
She said: “My thing is to get in the water and flap my hands a bit.”
Asked to clarify that she could swim, she replied: “No, I couldn’t do front crawl.”
The British star went on to train four times a week for four months ahead of the final Channel swim, a shoot which took nine days and was very "intense.
Daisy said: “That was intense. I told everyone I was scared of the open water and they thought I was lying.”
Her character was thrown apples for sustenance while swimming, but even those didn’t help.
She added: “I’m allergic to apples. They make my lips bubbly and I can’t breathe.”
