Daisy drowns out her fear of open water to play Queen of the Waves Karen Rockett

STAR Wars actress Daisy Ridley has admitted she is terrified of open water despite her new role as the first woman to swim the Channel.

The 32-year-old London-born star plays Gertrude (Trudy) Ederle, who in 1926 swam from France to England – and faster than any man.

But Daisy admitted that unlike Trudy, “I couldn’t do front crawl”.

She added: “My thing is to get in the water and flap my hands a bit.”

So the actress, who went from obscurity with a bit part in

Casualty to starring in the world’s biggest film franchise at 21, was forced to train four times a week for four months to shoot the final Channel swim.

Filming took place over nine days in the Black Sea and was far from plain sailing for Daisy.

“That was intense. I told everyone that I was scared of the open water and they thought I was lying,” she said.

In the film, called Young

Woman and the Sea, which is released on Friday, she is thrown apples for sustenance to keep her going.

But in another twist of fate, poor Daisy revealed: “I’m allergic to apples.

“They make my lips bubbly and I can’t breathe.”

The real Gertrude was an American competition swimmer, Olympic champion and world record holder in five events.

On August 6, 1926, she completed her epic swim from France and was nicknamed the “Queen of the Waves”.

She started at Cap

Gris-nez at 7.08am and as she came ashore at

Kingsdown, Kent, 14 hours and 34 minutes later a very British immigration officer requested a passport.

Prior to Trudy, only five men had completed the swim across the Channel, with the best time of

16 hours, 33 minutes recorded by Enrique

Tirabocchi.