ComingSoon’s Tyler Treese spoke with We Bury the Dead star Daisy Ridley about her new zombie movie. Ridley discussed her character’s hopefulness, the uniqueness of her projects, and how she approaches nonverbal scenes. We Bury the Dead is out in theaters on January 2, 2026.
“After a catastrophic American military experiment, resulting in mass casualties across Tasmania. Ava (Ridley) joins a body retrieval unit to help identify the dead and search for her husband in the southern part of the island,” reads the official synopsis. “As Ava makes her way south, across the ravaged landscape, she soon learns that some of the victims of the disaster are coming back to life.”
Tyler Treese: Daisy, I’ve been really impressed by your project selection lately. You don’t stray away from genre, but you still find these movies that have very interesting themes to them. Just Daisy Ridley vs. Zombies would’ve sold me. But this is much more contemplative and a more thoughtful version of that. Can you speak to just your project selection and what it was about We Bury the Dead that really spoke to you?
Daisy Ridley: I’m always drawn in by the script, and then I feel honestly really lucky that I’m sent such a wide variety of things because then I’ve been able to do all sorts of different things and explore stories in different genres. This certainly was something that I hilariously sort of didn’t realize that there were that many zombies in it. I just thought Ava’s story was so beautiful, and I really understood her and the humanity of what she’s going through, and then got to set, I was like, “Oh, the zombies.”
But I think what Zak has done is so wonderful and really the zombies a representative of her journey. They’re caught somewhere in between. They have unfinished business. There’s something they feel they need to attend to before they’re able to move on, much like Ava, and she’s so driven by the hope, the hope that maybe she’ll find her husband, and then the hope that if he is a zombie, they’ll there will be something they can do to bring him back. So that was really wonderful exploring.
She is laden with grief and laden with the difficulties that her and her husband have faced, but she’s also hopeful and driven by love and what might be waiting for her.
There’s some action later on, but I found some of the most haunting scenes were just when the dead are just standing there, and the lights are off the first time you see them. Obviously, the makeup’s great and the actor was great, but just your reaction is very striking. Can you speak to when you have to do a nonverbal performance? Because that’s just as impactful as seeing this reanimated corpse.
Daisy Ridley: What’s interesting is I think a lot of the characters that Ava meets early are very sort of cut and dry with the zombies because they have to be the people that are in the body retrieval unit. There’s a sort of reality you have to face in what you are doing. But Ava is really meeting it with curiosity. Her interest is piqued by the idea that we dunno what’s happened. There might be a way to bring them back.
So certainly when we meet the first, the oily guy in the garage, his performance was so fantastic, but I remember being so drawn in because of that, the curiosity of what it is that this person’s doing and not feeling like the fear was overtaking that. That continued for the next few zombies she meets.
There’s so much curiosity in that, and actually not that much fear, because for the most part, they seem okay. Then, of course, as time goes on, things change. But that was really, I think playing someone who is curious and is hopeful. There’s a different sort of response to what might be frightening in another version of events.
Thanks to Daisy Ridley for speaking about We Bury the Dead.
This is your biannual reminder that the independent offerings of Daisy Ridley deserve your attention. While she patiently awaits Disney and Lucasfilm’s next move with regard to Star Wars, Ridley has been releasing a couple well-received indies per year, save for Disney’s highly acclaimed sports biopic, Young Woman and the Sea (2024). On Jan. 2, Ridley kicks off the new year with another well-regarded film in We Bury the Dead.
Zak Hilditch’s contemplative zombie thriller, which premiered at 2025’s South by Southwest, chronicles Ava Newman (Ridley) as she journeys from America to Tasmania in hopes of finding her husband alive. The U.S. military botched a nearby weapons test that obliterated the population of Tasmania, creating either a pile of dead bodies or zombies that gradually become more aggressive. Ava’s husband, Mitch, had the misfortune of being on a work retreat there at the same time.
Ava’s marriage was already on the rocks. Her and her husband’s struggle to conceive a child slowly chipped away at their union, so she is simply looking for closure in whatever form it takes. Ridley ultimately channeled people in her life who were going through similar fertility challenges as her character.
“I knew a couple people that were going through IVF at the time. It can take a toll emotionally and physically on women, but also on their relationships while they’re going through it. So that actually felt really [palpable] at the time [of We Bury the Dead],” Ridley tells The Hollywood Reporter. “I understood that feeling of wanting something so much, and how difficult that can be, in a way that I never had before.”
In May of 2025, Ridley wrapped her first romantic comedy opposite none other than Solo: A Star Wars Story star Alden Ehrenreich. She nearly worked with the embryonic Han Solo toward the beginning of their Star Wars careers a decade ago, so the Phillipines-set The Last Resortis a long time coming for the Lucasfilm stablemates.
“I signed onto [The Last Resort] before I knew Alden was doing it. Alden and I were supposed to do a movie together ten years ago. It ended up not happening, but we became buddies, so I was really thrilled when he came on,” Ridley says.
Ridley and Ehrenreich’s promotion of The Last Resort will undoubtedly lead to some awkward Star Wars questions, but Ridley’s husband, Tom Bateman, has them both beat. In August, he wrapped his own romcom called The Love Hypothesis, which is based on Ali Hazelwood’s novel of the same name. The twist is that the book was born out of fan fiction that centered on his wife’s Star Wars character, Rey, and Adam Driver’s Kylo Ren. Bateman’s character is even named Adam after Driver.
“To be clear, Tom didn’t know that [The Love Hypothesis] was fan fiction, and I didn’t remember that it was fan fiction. So he had a number of auditions, and then he was told when he got the part that it was fan fiction, which was news to him,” Ridley shares. “I guess he told me, but I don’t think I put two and two together. It wasn’t until we got to Montreal [for filming] that someone again said that it was fan fiction, and I was like, ‘Huh.’ So I’m really looking forward to seeing the film. Sources say that it’s very good.”
Below, during a recent conversation with THR, Ridley also discusses the next collaboration between her and Bateman following 2024’s Magpie, as well as her favorite film of 2025.
***
Ava is an American who’s doing volunteer dead body retrieval in Tasmania, and she’s singled out at times for being a “Yank.” With the majority of We Bury the Dead’s cast and crew being Australian, did you also feel like a fish out of water?
You know what? I’ve never felt more a part of things. Actually, no, I have felt this a part of things before, but this was still a really, really wonderful experience. So I felt so much in the fabric of everything, and I didn’t feel like a fish out of water. It was really lovely.
Daisy Ridley as Ava in We Bury The Dead
Courtesy of Vertical
After playing mothers in The Marsh King’s Daughter and Magpie, do you think that context was helpful for this woman who’d desperately been trying to get to that position?
I knew a couple people that were going through IVF at the time. It was something that I had [previously] read about and heard about, but I didn’t know people [until then] that were really having that experience. It can take a toll emotionally and physically on women, but also on their relationships while they’re going through it. So that actually felt really [palpable] at the time. I understood that feeling of wanting something so much, and how difficult that can be, in a way that I never had before, and that was really what I was holding onto in playing her.
The most unsettling scene is not with a zombie; it’s with a soldier (Mark Coles Smith’s Riley). You’re used to playing other people, but not like that. Did any of those disturbing circumstances creep into your psyche at all? Or does your work generally not follow you home?
I generally don’t take my work home with me, but there were things that weren’t scripted that ended up happening during that sequence. At the beginning of all of that, Ava is really listening to Riley, and she’s really understanding in many ways where he’s coming from. There’s a desperation to his grief that feels more apparent than Ava’s, but they’re also mirroring each other in some ways. It then takes that very strange, creepy turn. So, in the running out, I had to slam the door, and then I screamed a couple things that were not scripted because the feeling was high. But then you cut, and it’s great, and you move on. But that sequence certainly felt properly frightening in the moment.
Daisy Ridley as Ava in We Bury The Dead
Courtesy of Vertical
In my mind, one of the defining images of you is your emotional audition video for Star Wars: The Force Awakens over a decade ago. When you have to cry on screen now, something you do several times in We Bury the Dead, is it similar to a light switch? Can you just turn it on and off?
No, not at all. For me, crying isn’t always the way we show sadness. So when it came to We Bury the Dead, I didn’t know what some of these scenes would end up being. I tend to ignore stage directions anyway because you just don’t know until you’re there. But I certainly didn’t know how some of the scenes in this film were going to go, and that’s really a testament to [writer-director] Zak [Hilditch] and the amazing cast and crew. We felt very safe and very open to see what happened in the moment.
I can always tell that you have a spidey sense for when the Star Wars questions are about to start, and you’re always a good sport about it. That being said, when you were weighing your upcoming Philippines-set movie (The Last Resort) with Alden Ehrenreich, how much did the inevitable StarWars questions affect your decision?
(Laughs.) Hilarious. Well, I signed onto that before I knew Alden was doing it. Alden and I were supposed to do a movie together ten years ago. It ended up not happening, but we became buddies, so I was really thrilled when he came on.
That should be a fun press cycle.
(Laughs.) Yeah.
Alden’s fictional son, Ben Solo, made headlines recently. The Hunt for Ben Solo was both news and old news to you at the same time?
Yeah, I hear things. I’ve got my ear to the ground.
You said that Adam Driver volunteering that information was the biggest surprise of the year, and you’re right, he’s usually very reluctant to talk about Star Wars.
(Laughs.) Yeah.
Was the second biggest surprise of the year when the writer of Magpie (Ridley’s husband, Tom Bateman) said he was going to be acting in a movie that began as fan fiction about Rey and Kylo Ren?
(Laughs.) To be clear, Tom didn’t know that [The Love Hypothesis] was fan fiction, and I didn’t remember that it was fan fiction. So he had a number of auditions, and then he was told when he got the part that it was fan fiction, which was news to him. I guess he told me, but I don’t think I put two and two together. It wasn’t until we got to Montreal [for filming] that someone again said that it was fan fiction, and I was like, “Huh.” So I’m really looking forward to seeing the film. Sources say that it’s very good, and I think it will be really charming and really fun.
As far as a Magpie follow-up, whatever that may be, has Tom been delivering pages to you fairly often?
Oh yeah. We have something that we are currently out to for someone to direct, which is fantastic. He has two or three other scripts that are ready to go. I also read the first draft of something that he just did, which is amazing. So he’s currently working on that now.
There’s a pattern in your work that began with Rey ten years ago, and it continues all the way through Ava in We Bury the Dead. You often play characters who are either lonely or alone for prolonged stretches. What do you make of that trend?
I don’t know. I guess there can be a lot of drama in that. But I have never had a plan of what I want to do next. I’m just drawn to what I’m drawn to, and the films that I’ve been drawn to, I’ve absolutely loved working on them. The Last Resort, which I made with Alden, really does buck that [loneliness] trend. I got to be around people. I mean, there is an element of loneliness to the person I play in that, but she really finds so much joy in the people around her. So it was really fun to do that.
It’s the end of the year, and people are releasing their lists of favorites. What film grabbed you the most this year?
The movie of the year for me is TrainDreams. But I will say that I have not seen Hamnet, which I can’t wait for. I’ve not seen SentimentalValue, which I can’t wait for. So I’ve seen screenings of a lot of movies lately, and while I’ve loved a lot of stuff, TrainDreams is really the one that got me. Ugh, it’s just a wonderful, wonderful movie.
*** We Bury the Dead opens in cinemas on January 2.
HOUSTON (AP) — The gold bikini-style costume that Carrie Fisher wore as Princess Leia while making “Return of the Jedi” in the “Star Wars” franchise has sold for $175,000, according to the auction house that handled the sale.
The costume was made famous when Fisher wore it at the start of the 1983 film when Leia was captured by Jabba the Hutt at his palace on Tatooine and forced to be a slave.
The costume, one of the most memorable in the “ Star Wars ” movies, was sold on Friday by Dallas-based Heritage Auctions.
Joe Maddalena, Heritage’s executive vice president, said the costume that was sold was one that was screen tested and worn by Fisher on the movie’s set but ultimately did not make it onto the final version of the film as it was switched out for one that was more comfortable.
The auction house said the costume sparked a bidding war among collectors.
Maddalena said he wasn’t surprised by the attention bidders gave to the costume as well as to a model of a Y-wing fighter that took on the Death Star in the original “Star Wars” film that sold for $1.55 million. He said “Star Wars” and “Star Trek” have very avid fan bases.
“The power of ‘Star Wars’ proves itself again. These movies are just so impactful,” Maddalena said.
In a November 2016 interview with NPR’s “Fresh Air,” Fisher said wearing the costume was not her choice.
“When (director George Lucas) showed me the outfit, I thought he was kidding and it made me very nervous. I had to sit very straight because I couldn’t have lines on my sides, like little creases. No creases were allowed, so I had to sit very, very rigid straight,” said Fisher, who died about a month after the interview.
Richard Miller, who created the costume, said in an interview that’s included in a “Star Wars” box set that he used soft material to build the costume so that Fisher could move around more freely.
“However, she still didn’t like it. I don’t blame her,” said Miller, who was the chief sculptor for Industrial Light & Magic, the visual effects company founded by “Star Wars” creator George Lucas. “I did put leather on the back of it to help it feel better.”
The costume had its share of critics, who thought it sexualized Fisher for the franchise’s male fan base.
In “Interview” magazine in 2015, Fisher told actor Daisy Ridley, who starred in “Star Wars: The Force Awakens,” “You’re going to have people have fantasies about you. That will make you uncomfortable, I’m guessing.” She pushed back against the idea of being a sex symbol and told Ridley to “fight for your outfit.”
Daisy Ridley is back on the big screen with one of her finest works to date in Young Woman and the Sea. Directed by Joachim Rønning, the biographical drama about legendary swimmer Gertrude “Trudy” Ederle is the highest testing film of Jerry Bruckheimer’s storied producorial career that includes the likes of Top Gun: Maverick, Beverly Hills Cop and Flashdance. Originally slated for a Disney+ exclusive release, Ridley and co. were rewarded with a limited theatrical run that begins on May 31. Such upgrades don’t come easy given the costs associated with theatrical exhibition, but as Rønning put it, Bruckheimer was “relentless” in his successful pursuit.
The film’s road to theatrical, in a way, parallels the underdog story that Young Woman and the Sea is telling involving Trudy, and Ridley considers this hard-earned achievement to be as rewarding as anything she’s done to date.
“It certainly felt like we set out to make a film that was wonderful and cinematic. So, for that to be appreciated is wonderful, and I hope that people go and see [Young Woman and the Sea] on the big screen,” Ridley tells The Hollywood Reporter.
To play an Olympic gold medalist in the 1920s and the first woman to swim across the English Channel, Ridley went to the same great lengths that she became known for while playing a Jedi in the Star Wars franchise. She was trained by an Olympic silver medalist named Siobhan-Marie O’Connor, and by the end of production, she was confidently swimming in the Black Sea and fighting off currents.
At the recent L.A. premiere of Young Woman, Ridley was tidying up in the bathroom when she received an unexpected endorsement from another one of history’s most fabled long-distance swimmers, Diana Nyad. Based on the latter’s attendance at the Young Woman premiere and her subsequent praise of Ridley, it’s evident that Nyad’s own biopic, Nyad (2023), and Young Woman can coexist without being pit against each other, as often happens when two films cover similar territory within a year of each other.
“I was washing my hands in the bathroom … and she came in. It was the most surreal thing. I kept going, ‘This is so trippy, this is so trippy. You did the thing, and I just played the person that did the thing,’” Ridley says. “But she was very encouraging because she could see that I had trained really hard. I really wanted to do justice by swimmers … So getting a pat on the back from Diana Nyad was pretty cool.”
Ridley recently produced and starred in her own indie film, Magpie, and after its recent premiere at South by Southwest, the Sam Yates-directed thriller — penned by Ridley’s husband, Tom Bateman — has already lined up distribution in the U.K. and Ireland. And Ridley is now revealing that U.S. distribution is already a done deal: “We also have distribution in the U.S. We just haven’t quite announced it yet,” Ridley shares.
While Ridley was shooting Magpie, Lucasfilm boss Katlheen Kennedy invited her to breakfast in order to pitch her what is currently regarded as Star Wars: New Jedi Order. Together with director Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy, Ridley’s beloved Jedi Master, Rey, will reestablish the Jedi Order, and she expects to read screenwriter Steven Knight’s script imminently: “I have not read actual words on actual paper, but [a script] is soon coming,” Ridley says.
Below, during a recent conversation with THR, Ridley also discusses how Young Woman, after a decade-plus of work, finally allowed her the proper chance to perform opposite sister and mother characters.
I spoke to you while you were shooting Magpie in January 2023, and you had just watched Young Woman and the Sea for the first time and said how great it was. Well, the test screenings proved you correct, resulting in a theatrical bump. Has this turn of events been as rewarding as anything you’ve been a part of so far?
Yes. I read somewhere that a streamer going theatrical hasn’t happened this way, and while maybe that’s wrong, it certainly felt like we set out to make a film that was wonderful and cinematic. So, for that to be appreciated is wonderful, and I hope that people go and see [Young Woman and the Sea] on the big screen. I’ve seen the finished film twice, and last night’s [L.A. premiere] screening was just beyond compare. Watching it on a screen of that size, there’s so much scope. The story is so intimate, but the space is so great that it’s served so beautifully on a cinema screen.
Daisy Ridley as Trudy Ederle in Disney’s Young Woman and the Sea
Vladisav Lepoev
You shot this about six or seven months before you went on to produce and star in Magpie. Did you ever get a chance to discuss your producorial ambition with Young Womanand the Sea producer Jerry Bruckheimer?
Was it only six or seven months before?
Yes, the summer of 2022.
Oh my God, you’re right! Wow. In my head, it was longer than that. Did I talk to him about [Magpie]? Yes, Jerry and [producer] Chad [Oman] and [writer-producer] Jeff [Nathanson] and [director] Joachim [Rønning] knew I was doing it. It was wonderful because I got to be on a film with Jerry Bruckheimer, and then I got to go and make my own thing. Of course, they are two very different projects, but over the last few years, I’ve been very blessed to make a lot of very different projects with a lot of very different filmmakers, who I respect and whose work and genres are different. So they’re very different projects, but beyond just being an actor, there’s a lot of joy in being a part of a team that’s bringing a story to life.
Daisy Ridley as Trudy Ederle in Disney’s Young Woman and the Sea
Disney
You and Trudy both made your names a century apart, but as I was watching Young Womanand the Sea, I found myself drawing parallels to your own career. Could you relate to Trudy’s experience on some level?
In terms of her doing something that broke down boundaries, I don’t know that I could compare to that, but I certainly feel a dogged determination. It’s funny, I saw my sister’s friend recently, and she knew me as a teenager. I hadn’t seen her for ages, and she went, “I always just remember you being super determined as a teenager.” And I was like, “That’s interesting.” So I feel like I was determined, and I was able to do something even though I didn’t know how I was going to do it. I wanted to be an actor, but I didn’t know how to do that. I just figured my way through. So, in a spiritual way, that determination and that love of doing what you want to do, I suppose there would be some comparison there.
Kim Bodnia as Henry Ederle, Jeanette Hain as Gertrud Ederle, Daisy Ridley as Trudy Ederle, Tilda Cobham-Hervey as Meg Ederle in Disney’s Young Woman and the Sea
Elena Nenkova
I’m glad you mentioned one of your sisters, because Young Woman is the first time you’ve had a prominent sisterly relationship in a film. Did you welcome that familiar yet new dynamic on screen?
I very much encouraged it. I’ve never had a sister on screen, and I’ve never actually had a mom on screen. So when I read the script, it was so beautiful already, but I had a conversation with Jeff Nathanson and Jerry and Chad and Joachim, where I said, “For me, this relationship is the absolute heart of the story. I want this to be a love story about these two sisters who are totally representative of totally different moments in their lives.” Trudy is overcoming a lot of obstacles, and she actually has a lot of freedom in that, strangely. But Meg doesn’t. Meg is representative of basically every other woman of that time, and I wanted it to feel real when sisters bicker. My sisters and I bicker, but we love each other so fiercely that there’s just no denying that sisterly bond.
When I was testing with people for Meg, I tested with amazing actors, but it just didn’t feel right for me, sister-wise. And then, when Tilda [Cobham-Hervey] and I spoke, there was just alchemy. There was that chemistry thing, and it just really worked. So I was very encouraging of that relationship, and I love Tilda. I’m glad that the relationship we have together as people, hopefully, translated onto the screen. And Jeanette [Hain], who is this gorgeous performer, plays our mother, and she is unbelievable as the rock of this family. So I was so thrilled to work with both of them.
Jeanette Hain as Gertrud Ederle and Daisy Ridley as Trudy Ederle in Disney’s Young Woman and the Sea
Vladisav Lepoev
Did Trudy really eat fried chicken while simming in the middle of the English Channel?
(Laughs.) I don’t know if she ate fried chicken. She must have, because there was a lot of research done, but [as a vegan], I was eating some fried tofu [in that scene].
We did a day of underwater work in a tank. We had done all of the open water stuff in the Black Sea at nighttime, which obviously had to be more controlled because it was more dangerous. But then we did a day of underwater work, and it was more comfortable to stay in the pool. So I had my little floating [lunch] tray, and I ate my lunch. It was enjoyable. But it’s that funny thing where you don’t want to eat too much. You’re starving because you’ve done so much work, but you don’t want to eat too much in case you vom, basically.
You worked with one of the Nyad producers on The Marsh King’s Daughter. I know you shot this after MarshKing, but was there ever any playful joshing between long-distance swimming films?
I met Diana Nyad last night [at the L.A. premiere]! It was so surreal. I was washing my hands in the bathroom, waiting for my people, and she came in. It was the most surreal thing. I kept going, “This is so trippy, this is so trippy. You are real. You did the thing, and I just played the person that did the thing.” But she was very encouraging because she could see that I had trained really hard. And that’s wonderful [to hear], particularly from the sports people that were there last night. I really wanted to do justice by swimmers, and in a physical way, I wanted to try and do as much as I could to look able and to sell the story. So getting a pat on the back from Diana Nyad was pretty cool.
So much time, money and energy is put into teaching actors skills for a movie, and some of them have told me that they feel a bit of regret when they don’t keep up with a particular skill. So, whether it’s twirling your laser sword or swimming laps, do you ever wish you had more time to maintain it all?
I feel like I work really hard for what I have to do. I work really hard for the training and I work really hard for the filming, and then afterwards, I go to sleep. But I’ve also maintained a lot of the skills I have already learned. I did a [Martin Campbell] action movie before Christmas called Cleaner, and I had done kickboxing for the last Star Wars film, so I did kickboxing again. I wasn’t starting from scratch there. I was relearning, and I already had a foundation. Swimming is the big one that I hadn’t really done before and I haven’t really done since, but watching the film again last night, I thought, “Yes, I did do a lot of swimming and my body deserves a rest.”
Before we return to Magpie, I have to do that obligatory thing where we ask about that other upcoming Disney movie [Star Wars: New Jedi Order]. Have you seen words on paper yet?
(Laughs.) I have not read actual words on actual paper, but [a script] is soon coming.
Daisy Ridley in Magpie
Courtesy of SXSW/Rob Baker Ashton
Magpie premiered at South by Southwest, and it recently landed distribution in your own backyard [U.K. and Ireland].
We also have distribution in the U.S. We just haven’t quite announced it yet.
Overall, what’s been the biggest eye-opener about birthing your own film?
Honestly, making films is really hard, and I knew they were, but the making of the film was actually not difficult. It’s just the after stuff that’s such a maze. Being independent and then finding distribution, we have amazing partners, which is wonderful, but I just didn’t realize how long everything took. So that was surprising. But I love our movie. We wanted to do something that we felt we hadn’t seen in a while, and I’m very happy that we are able to share Magpie with audiences this year.
*** Young Woman and the Sea opens in select theaters on May 31.
Daisy Ridley recalled director J.J Abrams’ words of wisdom following her casting in 2015’s The Force Awakens, saying this week that he told her to “understand the scale” of the film franchise before accepting the lead role.
Ridley played protagonist Rey in The Force Awakens, The Last Jedi (2017) and The Rise of Skywalker (2019), leading the Star Wars films through their first years following Disney’s acquisition of the George Lucas universe.
“This not a role in a movie,” Ridley recalled Abrams telling her in a new interview with Inverse. “This is a religion for people. It changes things on a level that is inconceivable.”
Abrams, Ridley says, was right: Star Wars changed her life, launching her status as a celebrity and pushing her to the forefront of an extremely passionate fan base.
“For friends and family, or any people who see something in a slightly different way than you do, there’s this projection of you, and you in that world, and how it feels to do this and that,” she said. “And you’re like, ‘Well, actually, I’m just a human being, separate from that.’ It’s quite this wrestle of the reality and the fantasy that’s often projected onto you.”
Ridley said the stress came at her quickly. “When all the craziness was going on, I was like, ‘I’m good. I’m good. I’m coping fine. Everything’s fine.’ And I was fine, for the most part. But I think what I was really grappling with was that it was my normal, but it was not normal to other people.”
Her stress soon manifested physically, and by the time The Last Jedi reached theaters, Ridley had developed holes in her gut wall. “My body was just fucked up,” she told GQ in 2019. “I got tests done and it turned out my body was taking in no nutrients. I was just a little skeleton and I was just so tired. I was becoming a ghost.”
Ridley took a six month break before beginning filming The Rise of Skywalker, which helped her recover. Then, the real end happened: “After the last Star Wars came out and everything was quiet, I was like, ‘What the fuck?’” Ridley said. “I was grieving.”
The experience ultimately took years to process, and was aided by the pandemic that started two years after Skywalker. “Having to sit in lockdown was incredibly helpful, in a way I hadn’t anticipated,” Ridley said. “I realized there was a lot that I hadn’t processed properly.”
Daisy Ridley tries a serious change of pace so solemn you can hardly find a pulse in ‘Sometimes I Think About Dying’. Courtesy of Oscilloscope
In the dull, inert drama Sometimes I Think About Dying, Daisy Ridley, the British-born actress who displayed much more animation, personality and range in the 2015 Star Wars film The Force Awakens, tries a serious change of pace so solemn you can hardly find a pulse. This time, she plays a boring young office worker named Fran who searches for an identity for an hour and a half without a shred of success. Thanks to sluggish direction by Rachel Lambert and a screenplay by three entire people who fail to display the focused writing talent of even one, this is a slogfest from beginning to end. The only test of any action will be determined by how fast you can get to the door marked “Exit”.
SOMETIMES I THINK ABOUT DYING ★(1/4 stars) Directed by: Rachel Lambert Written by: Stefanie Abel Horowitz, Kevin Armento, Katy Wright-Mead Starring: Daisy Ridley, Dave Merheje Running time: 91 mins.
Despite the placid beauty of coastal Oregon, where Fran lives, she finds nothing of any interest to relieve her state of empty, unfulfilled depression. Awkward and undefined, she rises each morning, eats the same microwaved breakfast, and walks into her job to assume the same daily position at her faceless computer. It is never clear what she does in the office, but it’s always the same routine, replete with paper clips and filing cabinets. At night, she pours a glass of wine and puts a dreary dinner in the food processor. At 10:19 she turns the light out. Mostly, she just stares moodily at the window, wondering perhaps what’s going on outside in the real world. Sometimes she stares blankly at the floor. Her expression, which never changes, is a look of terminal despair. She demonstrates no sign of interest in anything except cottage cheese and says almost nothing in sentences of more than five words, communicating with co-workers through blunt texts, but as the title suggests, “sometimes she thinks about dying.”
42 minutes into the film, Fran shares a piece of pie with Robert (Dave Merheje), a banal, balding, and overweight new employee who is as tediously tiresome as she is. It’s not clear what he does, either, but at least he likes old movies. He takes her to see one, about which she has no opinion, followed by a meal which she does not enjoy because the restaurant does not serve cottage cheese. Aha! Anticipation rises. A possible romance blooms. But nothing happens to guarantee any promise of emotional progress. It’s a movie about the relentless, paralyzing lives of the kind of working-class people the great writer Paddy Chayefsky used to bring brilliantly to life in plays and films such as Marty, Middle of the Night,The Bachelor Party and The Catered Affair—works of social realism that reveal deep elements of humanity in the world of common folk like the girl Daisy Ridley valiantly tries to play in Sometimes I Think About Dying. She works hard to find the sympathetic dimensions in Fran, but few are developed in a movie as blank as a sponged-down blackboard in an empty classroom. Nothing likely to inspire joy, pleasure or surprise.
It all leads up to Fran’s vain attempt to connect with Robert one last time. “Do you wish you could unknow me?” she asks. “I don’t know you,” is the answer. Neither do I, but I do know a clumsy, clueless and colossal bore when I see one.
Daisy Ridley has a lot going on these days, but she made a point to carve out some time to support The Marsh King’s Daughter, a film that was a promotional casualty of the now-resolved SAG-AFTRA strike. The English actor has plenty of reasons to be proud of her work in Neil Burger’s thriller, as she’s tasked with playing the psychologically complex and physical role of Helena. As a child, the character lived off the grid with her mother (Caren Pistorius) and father (Ben Mendelsohn) until she was abruptly and dramatically whisked away to lead a more civilized life.
Ridley shares the role with Brooklynn Prince, who plays young Helena in flashbacks. The two actors happened to have a viral moment in 2017, as Prince met Ridley backstage at Good Morning America. Ridley then surprised Prince once more during a The Florida Project Q&A with THR’s Scott Feinberg. And while it was a complete coincidence that the two were playing the same character in Marsh King’s Daughter, Ridley was amazed that they both portrayed Helena in a similar fashion.
“We were playing the same person, and while we didn’t really talk about it, we both approached Helena in very much the same way,” Ridley tells The Hollywood Reporter. “When I got to Canada, she sent me those pictures [from our previous interactions]. It’s quite surreal when you’re an adult and you see a tiny person growing. You’re like, ‘Where have the last few years gone? Why are you a teenager now?’”
Ridley last spoke to THR in late January for her Sundance gem, Sometimes I Think About Dying, and at the time, she didn’t know what was in store for her and Star Wars. That quickly changed in April, when Ridley’s return was announced by director Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy on the Star Wars Celebration stage. She’ll be leading Obaid-Chinoy’s film that’s set 15 years after the events of Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker (2019). Peaky Blinders and Locke scribe Steven Knight is helming the script.
“When I was at Sundance, I did not know. I shot my movie [Magpie] when I got back, and I had a breakfast with Kathy [Kennedy] that I thought was just breakfast,” Ridley recalls. “And then it was mentioned, so I thought about it. I loved the story, and I was like, ‘Okay.’ Things then happened quite quickly, and it felt like I was instantaneously on a stage being introduced by [director] Sharmeen [Obaid-Chinoy]. It honestly took me back to being 20 or 21, however old I was, when [Star Wars: The Force Awakens] was announced. I was petrified, I was overwhelmed, I was really nervous but the response was really wonderful. And I’m genuinely really excited about the next one. I haven’t read anything, but I know the story. It’s really worth telling, worth exploring, and I think people will be excited.”
Below, during a recent conversation with THR, Ridley also breaks down her most emotional Marsh King’s Daughter scene and how she instantly bonded with Ben “Mendo” Mendelsohn.
The Marsh King’s Daughter was right before Sometimes I Think About Dying, so I filmed this, went home for two weeks and then went and played Fran [in Astoria, Oregon].
When you started reading this script, what was the first detail to pique your interest?
It was the exploration of the father-daughter bond and what it means to have raised your child in such a way that they revere you and are terrified of you. The rest of Helena’s life is really shaped by that and the fear that she has, but also the excitement. She’s desperate to see him once she just innately knows that he’s not dead. So it was really that exploration and what it means to be a parent. And then it’s about what it means for her to be a parent and how he has informed her. Where is the line? If it wasn’t for her own child and him talking about her child, there’s a chance that the ending wouldn’t be the ending, but it’s about the lengths you will go to protect your own child from the person who raised you.
Daisy Ridley as Helena Pelletier in The Marsh King’s Daughter.
Philippe Bossé
Fran’s unknown backstory is something you and your Dying director debated, but in this case, Helena’s upbringing is clearly laid out through flashbacks. As an actor, do you prefer to have all the pieces of the puzzle like you had with Helena?
It was an interesting but different thing. I actually didn’t watch Brooklynn’s stuff till it was done, obviously, because I wasn’t on set. So it was an interesting thing. We were playing the same person, and while we didn’t really talk about it, we both approached Helena in very much the same way. It’s subjective and memory is hazy, and sometimes, things are wrong. How you viewed something as a 10-year-old and how you view it as a 30-year-old are two different things. So, [with regard to backstory], I don’t know that I can say I prefer either. Both ways challenge you and both leave a lot of room, strangely. There are a hundred ways to skin a cat, which is probably the wrong phrase, but that’s a really long answer to say that I like both.
You met Brooklynn Prince backstage at Good Morning America in 2017, and then you surprised her during a Q&A that she was doing with THR’s Scott Feinberg. Did you play the role of agent? Did you recommend her to play your character’s younger self?
I actually didn’t, but when I heard it was her, I was like, “What!?” So, when I got to Canada, she sent me those pictures, and she’s such a little baby in them. I remember how sweet and tiny she was, and I remember watching The Florida Project and being like, “Oh my God, this girl is unbelievable.” And then the producer [Alex Saks] who made Sometimes I Think About Dying also made Florida Project, so there were all these strange links. So I didn’t play agent, but I was so thrilled. It’s quite surreal when you’re an adult and you see a tiny person growing. Time seems different, and you’re like, “Where have the last few years gone? Why are you a teenager now?” Yeah, she’s amazing.
Had you and Ben Mendelsohn previously met at a Lucasfilm Christmas party, or was this your first time crossing paths?
(Laughs.) This was our first time crossing paths, and I couldn’t have been more thrilled. We FaceTimed, because we were both in quarantine, and I loved him immediately. (Ridley begins a stellar impression of “Mendo.”) He was like, “Dais, let’s just get a relationship. Let’s just chat. Let’s just FaceTime, hang out and talk to each other.” And then when we met, it felt like I’d met him many times before. He’s the most phenomenal actor, and I loved all the scenes with him, because they’re so confusing, heartbreaking, scary and joyful. He’s just so wonderful and he brings everything every time. So it was really fun playing with the different shades of it, because there are so many opposing things in their relationship, particularly how Helena feels about him. So, to have all of that space to fill in was quite wonderful.
I believe this was your first time playing a mother as well. How much did that affect your typical approach to a character?
I called Joey [Carson] little Meryl Streep. She was five or six; I think she turned six after we stopped filming. What’s interesting with a child is you are just serving a child. So, in a way, it’s an amazing acting thing, because you’re really not thinking about yourself at all. It’s like, “Is this child okay?” I don’t think it’s in the film, but there was a bit where I grabbed her and I had to look a certain way, but I was just so concerned about her that it was sort of amazing. I don’t know what being a parent is like, but I suppose that’s what it’s like. So she was so amazing. I had to grab her wrist and I kept saying, “Are you okay? Are you okay? And she said, “I’m fine, I’m fine.” And then she goes, “It’s weird, though, because after a bit, it feels like it hurts.” She was imagining so much that it started hurting, and I was like, “Oh my God, this brilliant child.” But it was just wonderful when she came to set, whether we were filming or not. It was all about serving her, and we played all the time. So it takes you out of yourself in a really wonderful way. It’s the opposite of self-consciousness. I just wanted her to be okay.
Gil Birmingham as Clark Bekkum and Daisy Ridley as Helena Pelletier in The Marsh King’s Daughter.
Philippe Bossé
The psychology of people who went from off-the-grid lifestyles to civilized life must be quite complex. How deep did you go to try and figure that out?
I did reading on cults and the feelings of people that were indoctrinated into something and have difficult parental figures. And the thing that I came across in what I saw involved tears. Even way after people had left things that were maybe not serving them in a healthy way, they didn’t cry. People don’t cry for years and years after they’ve left certain groups, so that was a big thing. With Helena, she’s desperately trying to not show anything, because her father literally tells her that the only tears he ever wants to see are the tattoos on her face.
So it was an interesting exercise in restraint until the moment where she says to her husband, “This is who I am. This is who made me. Will you please accept me now?” And it did make that scene feel so much more vulnerable and intimate. For someone who has been married for a while and lied to their partner about a lot of things, to then say, “This is me,” it made that scene feel so emotional, knowing that she’s unusual in that way but is open to receiving love or rejection. So a lot of it was an exercise in restraint, and when Ben and I were doing scenes together, it was really hard to not be emotional because he’s so … (Ridley gasps.) So I don’t know if I succeeded, but yes, a lot of it was not being too showy with emotion.
Yeah, that driveaway scene where she bares her soul to her husband is one of the best scenes you’ve ever done.
Oh, thank you.
Outside of the physical acting you had to do, was that the scene you anticipated the most or perhaps dreaded the most?
I was anticipating that, yes. Every time I read that bit in the script, I was like, “Oh my God, this poor woman, this poor woman.” Strangely enough, with Sometimes I Think About Dying’s last scene, I always thought, “This poor woman.” There’s always that moment where you think, “Oh my god, this is the most human essence of this person.” So I was anticipating that scene, but I also felt excited to see what it was because you just never know. You can prep and you can talk and you can discuss what it might be and what it is, but the actual expression of that is always going to be in the moment. So I was anticipating it, and then it was quite beautiful, particularly having held so much in and then being able to take a breath as Helena. It was very moving.
Daisy Ridley as Fran in Sometimes I Think About Dying
Dustin Lane/Courtesy of Sundance Institute
Not counting last-minute shoots at Bad Robot, is Sometimes I Think About Dying the only time you’ve shot a movie in the States?
Yes! I did The Marsh King’sDaughter in Canada, and then we shot [Dying] in Astoria [Oregon]. In England, you’re not allowed to drive yourself [to set], but I drove myself to certain stuff on [Dying]. It was such a different feeling. But yes, that was my first time in America.
Speaking of England, seven months ago, you were showered with adulation on the Star Wars Celebration stage. What was the basic course of events that led to that moment?
The basic course is when I was at Sundance, I did not know. I shot my movie [Magpie] when I got back, and I had a breakfast with Kathy [Kennedy] that I thought was just breakfast. (Laughs.) And then it was mentioned, so I thought about it. I loved the story, and I was like, “Okay.” Things then happened quite quickly, and it felt like I was instantaneously on a stage being introduced by [director] Sharmeen [Obaid-Chinoy]. It honestly took me back to being 20 or 21, however old I was, when [Star Wars: The Force Awakens] was announced. I was petrified, I was overwhelmed, I was really nervous but the response was really wonderful. And I’m genuinely really excited about the next one. I haven’t read anything, but I know the story. It’s really worth telling, worth exploring, and I think people will be excited.
*** The Marsh King’s Daughter is now available in movie theaters and on PVOD.
Documentaries about Brooke Shields, Judy Blume and Michael J. Fox, films from veteran directors like Nicole Holofcener, an adaptation of the viral New Yorker story “Cat Person” and the feature directorial debut of actors Alice Englert and Randall Park are among the world premieres set for the Sundance Film Festival in January.
Programmers for the world’s most prestigious showcase for independent films announced the lineup for the 2023 edition on Wednesday. After two pandemic hobbled years, plans are in motion to return to Park City in full force for the festival which runs from January 19 through January 29, with stars like Anne Hathaway, Tiffany Haddish, Julia Louis-Dreyfus, Alexander Skarsgård, Gael García Bernal, Cynthia Erivo, Daisy Ridley and Jonathan Majors headlining some of the 101 feature films in the slate. Tickets are currently on sale.
The festival which helped launch the careers of filmmakers from Steven Soderbergh to Ryan Coogler, is once again celebrating a diverse slate of features from first-time filmmakers. Among the narrative features premiering, 16 are from first time directors, 7 of whom are women. In feature documentaries 16 are from first timers and 14 of those are women.
“First time filmmakers are in the DNA of the festival. We’re always looking to find fresh voices to champion,” said Kim Yutani, the festival’s director of programming. “It’s such a pleasant surprise to look back and see those numbers and our program and to know that that organically happens.”
As always, there are exciting documentaries about well-known names. Lana Wilson’s “Pretty Baby: Brooke Shields” charts the actor and model’s early days, when photographers and filmmakers depicted Shields in sexualized way as a very young girl, and how she found her agency. Davis Guggenheim in “Still: A Michael J. Fox Movie” looks at what happens when “an incurable optimist confronts an incurable disease.” There are also documentaries about Little Richard, food writer Ruth Reichl, pioneering Black fashion model Bethann Hardison and the Indigo Girls.
In the U.S. Dramatic Competition, the section in which “CODA” debuted in 2021 before going on to win best picture at the Oscars, Molly Gordon and Nick Lieberman make their debut with “Theater Camp,” a Will Ferrell-produced comedy about a rundown theater camp in upstate New York scrambling to get ready for summer that stars Ben Platt. Jonathan Majors plays an amateur bodybuilder in Elijah Bynum’s “Magazine Dreams,” while Daisy Ridley shows her non-Star Wars chops in Rachel Lambert’s “Sometimes I Think About Dying,” which is among the day one premieres.
“Shortcomings,” an adaptation of Adrian Tomine’s graphic novel, is the debut of “Fresh Off the Boat” star Randall Park, who directs Justin H. Min, Sherry Cola and Ally Maki in a comedic, irreverent look at Asian Americans in the Bay Area.
Also making her feature directorial debut is Alice Englert with “Bad Behaviour,” a mother-daughter film about a former child actor, played by Jennifer Connelly, and mother to a stunt-performer daughter, who is looking for some enlightenment. Englert, whose own mother is Jane Campion, plays the daughter in the dark comedy about a toxic, co-dependent relationship, co-starrinng Ben Whishaw as a new age guru. Whishaw can also be seen alongside Adèle Exarchopoulos in Ira Sachs’ “Passages” about attraction and emotional abuse.
Fans of “The Bear” may take interest in “Fremont,” about a former military translator who now works at a Chinese fortune cookie factory and features a supporting performance from Jeremy Allen White, while Ayo Edebiri co-stars in “Theater Camp.”
“Succession” watchers will also find some of the show’s stars various films throughout the slate, like Sarah Snook getting to use her native Australian accent in Daina Reid’s “Run Rabbit Run,” about a fertility doctor grappling with ghosts from her past, and Nicholas Braun who lends a supporting hand in Susanna Fogel’s adaptation of “Cat Person,” starring Emilia Jones as the college student who gets involved with a 30-something man.
Jones also anchors “Fairyland,” the Sofia Coppola-produced and Andrew Durham-directed adaptation of Alyssa Abbott’s best-selling memoir about a father-daughter relationship in San Francisco at the dawn of the AIDs crisis.
The premieres section, which has debuted the likes of “Promising Young Woman” and “The Big Sick,” has many starry options. Thomasin McKenzie and Anne Hathaway co-star in William Oldroyd’s “Eileen” about a young secretary who becomes fascinated with a glamorous new counselor at the prison where she works in Massachusetts in 1964.
Sundance veteran and documentary director Roger Ross Williams makes his narrative debut with “Cassandro,” starring Gael García Bernal as Saúl Armendáriz, a gay amateur wrestler from El Paso who becomes an international star. And Nicole Holofcener reunites with Julia Louis-Dreyfus for “You Hurt My Feelings,” about a novelist who overhears her husband’s “honest reaction” to her new book.
Senior programmer John Nein noted that there are quite a few diaspora films represented in the various sections as well.
“They reflect the changing film cultures of some of the places from which they come,” he said.
Noora Niasari’s “Shayda” is about an Iranian woman (played by Zar Amir Ebrahimi ) with a 6-year-old daughter seeking refuge from an abusive relationship in a shelter in Australia. From the United Kingdom, there is “Girl,” from Adura Onashile about an 11-year-old and her mother who are from Africa. In the midnight section there is Nida Manzoor’s fun genre piece “Polite Society” about a wedding heist. And from the U.S., Sing J. Lee has “The Accidental Getaway Driver” about a Vietnamese cab driver taken hostage by escaped convicts in California.
There are dozens of documentaries that focus on some of the most pressing issues of the moment, too, like Razelle Benally’s “Murder in Big Horn,” about the deaths of Native women in rural Montana, Tracy Droz Tragos’ “PLAN C” about a grassroots organization in the U.S. fighting to expand access to abortion pills, and Nancy Schwartzman helps uncover a troubling pattern of women reporting sexual assault who are then charged with creating a false report in “Victim/Suspect.” “20 Days in Mariupol,” directed by AP videojournalist Mstyslav Chernov in partnership with Frontline, gives an unprecedented look at the work of Ukrainian journalists trapped in Mariupol at the beginning of the Russian invasion.
“These filmmakers reflect the world around us through bold and thrilling storytelling,” said Joana Vicente, CEO of the Sundance Institute. “It is critical for the arts to foster dialogue, especially during unprecedented times — these stories are needed to provoke discussion, share diverse viewpoints, and challenge us.”
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Follow AP Film Writer Lindsey Bahr: www.twitter.com/ldbahr.
