“You’re offering me a job?” “I’m considering it.” Daisy Ridley might be moving from one enormous franchise to another, if one story is to be believed. Deadline are reporting that the 23-year-old actress, who burst onto the scene as the hero of Star Wars: The Force Awakens as Rey, is in the running to play Lara Croft in a Tomb Raider reboot.
Warner Bros and MGM are partnering on a new film version of the classic video game, and they’re scouting for a young actress to take up the role of the grave-digging archaeologist. Ridley fits the profile.
Angelina Jolie originally played the character in 2001’s Lara Croft: Tomb Raider, and its 2003 sequel The Cradle Of Life, two films which weren’t particularly well received but nonetheless each became the highest-grossing video game adaptations in history.
Appetite for a reboot has been building steadily since the video game series was itself rebooted to great acclaim in 2013 with Tomb Raider, which transformed Lara Croft’s cartoonish features and comically conical chest into something more realistic and believable. It also served as an origin story for the character, which is potentially the route this film would take.
The Deadline report states only that “conversations have taken place” between Ridley and the studio, and there have been no official negotiations, so other actresses are likely to be considered. But this could be a smart move for the young star as a first project in a galaxy less far away.
Meanwhile, Ridley has plenty on her plate: she’s currently filming Star Wars: Episode VIII here in the UK, due for release in December 2017.