Daisy Ridley Did Not Know Rey's Lineage During 'The Force Awakens'
During the marketing for Star Wars: Episode VII - The Force Awakens, fans started to speculate who exactly Rey could be. As we all know by this point, she is the granddaughter of Senator Chancellor Emperor Darth Sidious Sheev Palpatine. This revelation in Episode IX - The Rise of Skywalker was disappointing to those who loved the idea of "Rey Nobody" that seemed to have been confirmed in Episode VIII - The Last Jedi. On the other hand, the "Rey Nobody" revelation was disappointing to some who expected Rey to be related to someone important, because some believed that the character had to be related to someone important in order to be powerful.
Recently, USA Today bestselling author Sariah Wilson had a conversation with Rey actress Daisy Ridley. On Wilson's Twitter, she wrote up a recap of a specific part of their conversation in which she brought up the "Rey Nobody" idea and Ridley's response to it, doubling down on how the process went down as the sequels were being made and Rey was being developed:
"I told Daisy Ridley how much I loved Rey Nobody, how Rey was just powerful on her own and was sad when they made her a Palpatine.
Daisy said she also loved that Rey came from nowhere and for the first two films
'I literally was told that she was no one, so yeah, I totally understand that. I do understand that.'
I apologized again for bringing up SW, and she smiled and told me, 'It's all good!'
Just in case people aren't putting the tweets together, she said for the first two movies she was told that Rey was no one."
It makes sense that Daisy Ridley would go with the idea of Rey Nobody in The Last Jedi, given that this was the "reveal" for the film at the time. But this conversation reinforces that she was also told that Rey was a nobody when The Force Awakens was being made prior to that. This falls in line with what she said on Jimmy Kimmel Live six months ago, which is that Rey started being developed as a Kenobi before everyone settled on her being a nobody:
"At the beginning there was toying with like an Obi-Wan connection. There were like different versions, and then it really went to that she was no one. Then it came to Episode IX and J.J. pitched me the film and was like, ‘Oh yeah, Palpatine’s granddaughter.' I was like, ‘Awesome!’ Then two weeks later he was like, ‘Oh, we’re not sure.’ So it kept changing. Even as we were filming I wasn’t sure what the answer was going to be.”
So it was during the final installment of the sequel trilogy that the Rey Palpatine idea became a thing (though it was a bit in flux even as they were filming), whereas the first two installments were made with the idea that Rey would not have a familial relation to anyone important. She even tells BB-8 in her first film that she is no one. Certain aspects of her first film may have made it seem like she was related to someone, but one could argue that the talk with Maz Kanata points to her origins not being as important as the conflict in the present. Some would argue that Rey Nobody was a better idea since it asserts that a hero can come from anywhere and does not have to be of a certain lineage. But of course, the story that we got is the story that we got.
Source(s): The Direct, Indie Wire