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

Ridley and husband Tom Bateman collaborated on new thriller 'Magpie,' now playing in select theaters

Daisy Ridley is returning to the big screen — in a dark thriller about infidelity, written by her husband.

The acclaimed new film Magpie was first conceptualized by Ridley, 32, and written by her husband and former Murder on the Orient Express costar Tom Bateman, 35. But the onscreen plot is nothing like their marriage, the Star Wars actress tells PEOPLE in an exclusive interview.

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

Directed by Sam Yates, Magpie chronicles the marriage of Annette (Ridley) and Ben (Shazad Latif), which begins to crumble when their daughter is cast alongside Alicia, an alluring actress, in a period movie. "As Anette’s suspicions of Ben’s infatuation with Alicia intensify, their secrets and lies threaten to burst to the surface and destroy them all," a synopsis of the film reads.

Related: Magpie Trailer: Daisy Ridley Gets Twisted in a Dark Thriller About a Fractured Marriage (Exclusive)

Ridley and Bateman met while on the set of Murder 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 of Magpie, 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, Magpie has cast light on how their understanding of each other bears fruit in a shared project.

"Being able to write what I know her strengths are was so rewarding,” Bateman previously told CBR at 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 idea for the film came to Ridley when shooting a project in Canada, inspired by thoughts of how “the lines between reality… and those incredible intimacies that fall very quickly," she tells PEOPLE.

Related: Daisy Ridley Reveals She's Been Diagnosed with Graves’ Disease: 'I Didn't Realize How Bad I Felt'

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."

Magpie is now playing in select theaters.

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