Daisy Ridley Fibbed About Her Swimming Skills To Play First Woman To Swim The English Channel in 'Young Woman And The Sea'
- Details
- Category: Interviews
- Created: Thursday, 18 July 2024 21:02
- Published: Thursday, 18 July 2024 21:12
- Written by Lupe R Haas
Who doesn't exaggerate their skills on a resume or CV? Daisy Ridley may have stretched the truth about her swimming skills when she was in discussion to play Trudy Ederle, the first woman to successfully swim the English Channel in director Joachim Rønning's YOUNG WOMAN AND THE SEA. On day one of training, Ridley realized that she may be over her head after misrepresenting herself.
YOUNG WOMAN AND THE SEA is based on the incredible true story of Trudy Ederle, an Olympic swimmer and the first woman to swim across France to England. The film comes to Disney+ on Friday, July 19.
Daisy Ridley (STAR WARS: THE FORCE AWAKENS) trained with Olympic medalist Siobhan-Marie O'Connor in a swimming pool, but she would eventually shoot her scenes in open water in Bulgaria. The actor felt some trepidation on her first day in the pool.
"Before my first swimming lesson with Siobhan, I tried to swim a 20 meter length and stood up and was like, excuse my French, f$#! this!," she said recently at a press conference. "I had warned the team. Well, sort of, I lied on my CV a little bit at the beginning. I was like, I'm great at swimming."
Ridley describes her training as overwhelming and "impossible" to master the front crawl. Learning the mechanics of the front crawl was hard enough, but the film's star had to learn Trudy's unique crawl which had more of a bent to her crawl.
After three months of training, Ridley hit Bulgaria's cold Black Sea for production. She was in for a rude awakening when she took the first plunge.
"So I do remember the first time getting in, and it is just an overwhelm of everything, of the current and the cold and of course, because Trudy's only wearing a bikini, there was no wetsuit situation," she admitted. So there was a lot to contend with and then keeping in focus of the camera, so having to keep up with the [alsas?] this way. But I said I wasn't gonna complain beforehand, which was helpful because that would've sent me down a different track."
Once in the water, the actor had to switch up what she learned because of the buoyancy and the cold temperature. Ridley describes the weather as "unseasonably cold" and the local government did not allow the filming in the water because of the low temperature.
Ridley truly suffered for her art, and it pays off with a truly inspirational tale of perseverance and stamina.
YOUNG WOMAN AND THE SEA starts streaming on Disney+ on July 19.