Lucasfilm(LOS ANGELES) — Daisy Ridley is not just the star of Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens and Star Wars Episode VIII: The Last Jedi — she’s also a singer who appears on one of this year’s Grammy-nominated albums.
Daisy, who plays Rey in the new Star Wars movies, is one of Barbra Streisand‘s duet partners on her most recent collection, Encore: Movie Partners Sing Broadway, which is nominated for a Grammy for Best Traditional Pop Vocal Album. She and Oscar-winner Anne Hathaway join Streisand to sing “At the Ballet,” a song from A Chorus Line.
So, how’d that happen? As Daisy explains, Streisand is a pal of Force Awakens director J.J. Abrams.
“J.J. told me she wants to meet me,” she tells ABC Radio. “I was like, ‘Sure…whatever you say.'”
But the invite turned out to be legit. “I went for tea at her house,” she recalls. “…She doesn’t know this, but I left and I was sobbing in the car.” Sobbing with joy, that is.
“That was actually one of the moments where I thought, like, ‘Life-change moment,'” she explains. “Just the opportunities that were kind of coming up.”
As you might expect, actually singing with La Streisand was quite overwhelming for Daisy.
“It was amazing!” she gushes. “She’s an incredible human being. And we went to go see her concert which was, like, bring-the-roof-down.”
Unfortunately, if Encore: Movie Partners Sing Broadway wins the Grammy, Daisy herself won’t get to take a trophy home. If you’re a featured artist on the Album of the Year, you get an award. But if you’re in one of the so-called “genre” categories, like Traditional Pop, you’re out of luck.
Daisy simply will have to be content with starring in what will likely be the biggest-earning movie of the year: The Last Jedi arrives in December.
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