Do we like Daisy Ridley?
Our score: 8 out of 10. Nothing harmful in her own words or acts turned up, plus a few decent public stands, though the public record is fairly thin.
Ridley is best known as Rey, the lead of the Star Wars sequel films. In 2024 she told the Smartless podcast she was surprised to be asked back for another Rey film, and that she was signed for just that one film, for now.
On the harm check, the record is clean. When the Rise of Skywalker premiered in 2019, she called the film's brief same-sex kiss between two women “awesome”, and said she went to the Los Angeles premiere with a lesbian couple. LGBTQ+ fans did argue the kiss was too short to count as real representation, so that's a fair gripe about the studio rather than about her.
On politics, she is open about it. She told the Guardian in 2019 that everyone has an issue with Trump, “every sane person anyway”. That's her own view and not a harm marker, but it did land with some of the American audience.
In 2024 she said fan sexism claims were overblown. She also said she has only ever been embraced by fans, and she praised director Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy, who is the first woman and first person of colour to direct a Star Wars feature. Where you land depends on whether you read it as a loyal defence of her fans or as playing down what some women in the fandom have copped.
On the good stuff, she was listed as one of the performers in a Cinema for Gaza table read of Pride and Prejudice in London in October 2025, with proceeds going to Medical Aid for Palestinians. Reasonable people disagree on Gaza politics, but a charity fundraiser for medical aid is a plain act of giving. We found no court cases, no accusations of misconduct and nothing on staff or co-star treatment, and nothing new on her lately.