Watch Daisy Ridley's Intense Training For The Last Jedi

Rome wasn't built in a day, and neither was actress Daisy Ridley's repertoire of lightsaber skills. 

Leading up to the official release of Star Wars: The Last Jedi, Lucasfilm unveiled a behind-the-scenes video offering fans insight into Ridley's intense training regime that got her into tip-top shape to play Rey, the Force-sensitive fighter who will train under Luke Skywalker (played by Mark Hamill) in the upcoming movie. 

The featurette shows Ridley blocking out a scene in which Rey practices moving and striking with her staff on the isolated aquatic planet of Ahch-To, where she finds Luke living in exile after he hadn't been heard from in over 30 years. "Daisy is training for a moment where she is on the islands and she has a moment to herself and she's practicing with the staff," The Last Jedi writer and director Rian Johnson explains in the clip. "And then she realizes, 'What am I wasting my time practicing with the staff? I have Luke Skywalker's lightsaber in my satchel.' It's just working out the moves for that."

Assistant fight coordinator Lian Yang says he planned to teach Ridley the full routine in three days, but she is a surprisingly "quick learner" and ended up perfecting the move-set for the scene "in an hour and a half."

"Physically, I never really had to push myself that hard and stamina-wise you're like, 'Oh my god,'" Ridley says of her training for The Last Jedi. "It's like a psychological thing of knowing you can do it more and more and more."

From there, the video takes a look at John Boyega and Gwendoline Christie's training for their Finn-against-Captain Phasma battle sequence. 

"This is the hardest physical thing I've done yet," notes Christie, who is no stranger to grueling training sessions, what with her experience playing the knight Brienne of Tarth on HBO's Game of Thrones. "The suit can be very restrictive just to move in, just to walk in. You do the move and you think, 'Gosh, is it lunchtime yet?" the actress laughs. 

We also get a sneak peek into what newcomer Kelly Marie Tran and Adam Driver's preparations for Rose Tico and Kylo Ren, respectively, were like. Tran learned "different types of fighting," and Driver went "so full out" in each of his practice rounds, something that inspired Ridley to step up her game and reminded her that she can do it. "It's just rigorous–in a great way," Driver says. "And these stunt guys are very disciplined, so you can't half-a** it."

With the galaxy far, far away on the cusp of war, the actors' fight training will definitely be put to good use in The Last Jedi, due out in theaters on December 15.