Daisy Ridley on Making an Infidelity Thriller with Her Husband: 'People Tell Me We’re the Happiest Married' Couple (Exclusive)

Mar. 15, 2025

Daisy Ridley and Tom Bateman on Oct. 23.Photo:Jason Mendez/Getty

Jason Mendez/Getty

“It’s funny, because people tell me and Tom that we’re the happiest married people they know,” Ridley says.

Ridley and Batemanmetwhile on the set ofMurder on the Orient Express,Kenneth Branagh’s 2017 film adaptation of the classic Agatha Christie novel. Rumors of their engagement circulated for years before the pair confirmed their marriage in 2023.

The couple considered a great number of complex relationship dynamics in the creation ofMagpie, she tells PEOPLE.The concept of “paper cuts” — the chipping away at the other person in the relationship, the manifestation of indifference and casual cruelty — and how such wounds can disfigure a once-happy relationship, come up frequently throughout the film.

“If you are constantly cutting at someone, they will lose blood… the lifeblood of the relationship,” Ridley says.

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Though Ridley and Bateman have kept their romance mostly private,Magpiehas cast light on how their understanding of each other bears fruit in a shared project.

Daisy Ridley inMagpie.Courtesy Rob Baker Ashton

Courtesy Rob Baker Ashton

“Being able to write what I know her strengths are was so rewarding,” Bateman previously toldCBRat the film’s SXSW Film Festival premiere in March. “I could be really daring and bold and write a whole scene with no dialogue and just her character’s thoughts.”

The original plan was to follow an actress, who had become obsessed with playing a motherly role, penetrating the bonds of family. Ridley shared the idea with Bateman, who then began writing. But a couple of weeks into the process, Bateman found he was much more drawn to the woman at home.

“She’s isolated and in a difficult relationship, and what must that do to a person?” Ridley says of her character. “So he really sculpted it and shaped it into the film.”

Magpieis now playing in select theaters.

source: people.com