Daisy Ridley finds herself back in the skies, but this time she doesn’t have The Force to rely on. Ridley leads Cleaner, a new high-octane action thriller from Martin Campbell (Casino Royale). The London native stars as Joey, a skyscraper window cleaner who becomes trapped several hundred stories high when a group of terrorists takes her building under siege.
While Ridley was not actually suspended as high up as Joey appears in the movie, Campbell and company put her through as much stimulation as possible in order to provoke the legitimate feeling of the heights.
ScreenRant spoke with Ridley to discuss Cleaner‘s death-defying stunts, Joey’s headspace going into her life-changing workday, and how she developed the movie’s crucial sibling dynamic between her character and her brother, Michael (Matthew Tuck).
Daisy Ridley Opens Up About Cleaner’s “Scary” Stunts
“I Remember Thinking I Was Terrified…”
You’d never be able to tell the terror behind Joey’s eyes in Cleaner from Daisy Ridley’s performance. When asked by ScreenRant‘s Liam Crowley about the secret behind avoiding spilling a widow cleaner’s water bucket when belaying down the side of the building, Ridley revealed that various cleaning equipment strapped to her directly impacted her performance.
“One of the really difficult things is that I had got used to being in the harness, and I’d got used to the window cleaning, but then putting all of the stuff on you, it changes your balance,” Ridley explained. “The water’s obviously really heavy, and then you’re trying to figure out how to get this from here and this from here. That was tricky.”
“But literally, oh my God, even thinking about it makes me feel quite tense.”
Once Ridley had gotten the hang of her new balance, she had to get the hang of, well, literally hanging.
“The moment where Joey first steps out onto the side of the building and goes down, I remember thinking I was terrified. And of course, the camera moves, comes, and pans down, and there’s the whole thing going on,” Ridley continued. “I had got so used to being put there, then having to put myself there was scary.”
Cleaner Stands On The Shoulders Of A Sibling Relationship
“Getting To Work With Matt To Create That Was Really Beautiful…”
All the terror that Joey feels is eased by who’s counting on her at home. “I really loved creating the relationship with Matt, who plays my brother Michael. I think it’s a really beautifully drawn relationship because it’s not simple, it’s complicated,” Ridley said of Joey’s dynamic with her autistic brother, Michael.
“You see the way they’re speaking to each other, and of course it’s understandable that she would be frustrated that he’s potentially going to interrupt her job, but she also knows the minute that she reacts to him harshly, she knows she shouldn’t have, and she knows she should have taken a moment.”
“Watching her then navigate that and, in such a small amount of time, trying to apologize to someone who you love so much, but you have let down time and time again, how painful that is. Getting to work with Matt to create that was really beautiful.”
The opening moments of Cleaner see Joey sleep through her alarms, and as she is already running late to work, she gets a call that Michael has been evicted from his care home.
“I remember doing that was really tricky,” Ridley continued. “Trying to figure out the balance of how frustrated she must be, but also she has had a lifetime of trying to make sure that he’s okay emotionally. I love that it’s not as simple and easy between the both of them. I love that she takes accountability for how she’s been.
“And really, the big thing is that she has told him time and time and again, ‘Next time, next time, we’ll spend more time together next time.’ And the fact is there might not be a next time. Her immediate response is, ‘How am I going to save my brother?'”
Stay tuned for our other Cleaner interviews with Taz Skylar and director Martin Campbell.
Cleaner is now in theaters.
Source: ScreenRant Plus
