Daisy Ridley was convinced she wouldn't win a role in Murder on the Orient Express after auditioning while feeling jet lagged and "disgusting".
The British actress made her silver screen debut in Star Wars: The Force Awakens as Rey, which propelled her into instant fame and has cemented her name in the science fiction franchise.
Daisy will return to the role of Rey when next instalment The Last Jedi hits cinemas in December (17) but, before that, fans can see Daisy in Kenneth Branagh's film adaptation of Agatha Christie's famous novel, about detective Hercule Poirot - played by the director himself - solving a murder case on a train.
"I think I’d seen two things (of Kenneth's) this season, and then I got the call to audition and I was like, 'F**k,'" she recalled to her Star Wars co-star Adam Driver, who interviewed her for V magazine. "I had to fly back from L.A, and I was jet-lagged and felt disgusting. Again, I thought there was no way I got it. When I was told the cast, I couldn’t believe who I was working with. Then, I couldn’t believe how amazing the experience was. Every single cast member, every single crew member was magical."
Despite it being the second feature she had ever worked on, and her co-stars including the likes of Johnny Depp, Judi Dench, and Penelope Cruz, the 25-year-old felt relaxed throughout production and insists it was an "intimate and wonderful" atmosphere.
And it seems Kenneth's theatre expertise and knowledge rubbed off on the cast, as Daisy admitted she'd one day like to take to the stage.
"When we were finishing, Penelope and I were doing a scene in Orient and Ken mentioned The House of Bernarda Alba, and I was like, 'That would be amazing, but terrifying,'” she said. "Literally. My stage fright, even on film sets, is so great that the thought of it is genuinely paralysing... Saying the same thing night after night, people coming to see you and expecting something, it’s so alien to what I know. But I would eventually like to do Shakespeare."
