Even Daisy Ridley gets starstruck seeing The Mandalorian himself, Pedro Pascal. Despite bringing the story of Rey to a conclusion in “Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker,” Ridley says she still watches and enjoys some of the expanding “Star Wars” stories being told in TV on Disney+.
“I haven’t watched all of them, but it’s just because of timing and stuff like that. But yeah, I mean the work everyone’s doing is amazing,” Ridley told TheWrap at the 2023 Sundance Film Festival in support of her new film “Sometimes I Think About Dying.”
“I worked with Pedro Pascal and I was like, ‘This is really cool, he’s The Mandalorian.’ I still find it all very exciting.”
As the conversation turned to “Star Wars,” Ridley’s “Sometimes I Think About Dying” co-star Parvesh Cheena surprised her with the news that he has a voice performance in the upcoming third season of “The Mandalorian.”
“Will you watch ‘The Mandalorian’ this season?’ Cheena asked Ridley, to which she replied, “Sure.”
“You might recognize someone’s voice,” Cheena said, at which Ridley squealed with delight: “Oh my God that’s so cool!”
“Sometimes I Think About Dying” centers on a withdrawn young woman who keeps to herself, ghosting her way through life at her office job. But when a friendship develops with a co-worker, she’s forced to come out of her shell in ways both moving and uncomfortable.
In the film, Dave Merheje’s character shares his love of movies with Ridley’s character as a way of getting her to open up. So TheWrap asked the cast members, what’s a movie they like to show to someone they care about when they find out they’ve never seen it?
Keeping it in the Disney family, Ridley answered with “Moana.”
“I know a lot of people have seen it, but when people say they haven’t I’m like, ‘Ohhhh!’ Joy.”
For Cheena, his go-to is “Wall-E,” adding that the dialogue-free prologue shares a lot with “Sometimes I Think About Dying.”
“There’s so much silence in our film. Daisy, I kind of forgot that Fran was American until you spoke for the first time in the film, because it’s like 20 minutes in before [Daisy’s] character speaks. I don’t know, ‘Wall-E’s been on my mind lately and the fact that we’ve all been talking about it because of the silence is very interesting.”
“I think my favorite movie is ‘It’s a Wonderful Life’ – I could watch it in July,” co-star Brittany O’Grady added. “Right now though, I’ve been trying to get people to watch ‘Triangle of Sadness,’ which I’m sure a lot of people have watched, but I’m like, ‘Oh my gosh you’ve gotta see the scene on the boat where the people are eating.”
And for Merheje? “It would be ‘Elf.’”
TheWrap’s Portrait and Video Studio at The Music Lodge during the 2023 Sundance Film Festival is sponsored by NFP along with support from Sylvania and HigherDOSE.
