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Watch Daisy Ridley's awesome and intense Star Wars: The Force Awakens audition tape

This is how you win a coveted role

Jacob Stolworthy
Tuesday 29 March 2016 11:32 BST
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Newcomer Daisy Ridley beat out the entirety of Hollywood's elite to be cast as the female lead in JJ Abrams' box office behemoth Star Wars: The Force Awakens and, if it wasn't before, it's now clear to see how she went about it.

Ahead of the film's Blu-ray release, Disney has released a never-before-seen clip via BuzzFeed showing Ridley's powerful audition tape.

The scene which won her the role? The one where Kylo Ren (Adam Driver) uses the Force in an attempt to enter Rey's mind. ​
In the clip, director Abrams can be heard describing the specification required for the role.

"What we were looking for was someone new. 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," he admitted.

"It wasn’t until we found Daisy that we just felt like she was capable of doing all of these things this character required."

The Force Awakens was recently leaked onto torrent sites weeks ahead of its home entertainment release which arrives in the UK on 18 April. It was downloaded over 250,000 times in just 12 hours.

As well as Ridley's audition clip, the Blu-ray will contain a making-of documentary, behind-the-scenes footage and a whole host of deleted scenes - one of which features Driver's villain entering the legendary Millennium Falcon.

The Force Awakens will be available on Digital HD and Disney Movies Anywhere the previous week on April 11.

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