Watch Daisy Ridley’s intense audition tape that landed her the role of Rey in ‘Star Wars’

Daisy Ridley’s character Rey was an integral part of J.J. Abrams’ “Star Wars” new class. But how did the director know that this relatively unknown actress could help lead the charge in the galaxy far, far away? Her audition tape certainly helped. Watch Ridley’s strong audition clip for the role of Rey.

Part of the “Star Wars: The Force Awakens” DVD and Blu-Ray extras includes a look at the casting tape of Ridley’s character. In this brief behind-the-scenes clip Abrams narrates his struggle in finding a lead.

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“What we were looking for was someone new,” Abrams’ voice-over says. “This character needed to be vulnerable and tough, sweet and terrified. And to find someone, that no one knew, who could do all these things took a lot of looking.”

The scene clipped here is probably one of the more aggressive moments of the whole movie. It’s the Jedi mind torture Rey finds herself subject to at the hands of the villainous Kylo Ren (played by Adam Driver).

“When we brought her in I asked her to do this one scene, sort of this torture scene, very sort of intense,” Abrams elaborated. “And she just blew my mind. She’s reaching this depth of struggle and tears are streaming down her face. I thought, ‘This is unbelieveable.’ And I asked her to stop, gave her a couple adjustments, do it again. And she just did it again. And I thought, ‘Oh my God.’”

Honestly, it’s a pretty great audition reel for the few seconds that we got. Fingers crossed, the DVD has the rest of the new class reels as well.

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