A Quick Look at the Stars: Daisy Ridley, the Queen of Virtual Reality

by Conan Simmons – November 22, 2020 – 7:07 am

Welcome to the first installment of a new series here at On Genre where we take a Quick Look at the Stars, those icons of the screen of today, yesterday and tomorrow.

A newly minted star in recent years is British actress, Daisy Ridley. From Jedi master to a dominant presence in the growing virtual reality industry Daisy Ridley is a star to keep your eyes on.

Making her feature film screen debut in the low budget horror fantasy ‘Scrawl’ Daisy quickly segued into leading lady status as Rey, a mysterious orphan with dormant Jedi abilities in the blockbuster hit ‘Star Wars: The Force Awakens’ in 2015.

Before she returned to the character that made her famous she provided her voice to the 2016 English dubbed release of ‘Only Yesterday’, an anime film from Studio Ghibli that director Isao Takahata made in 1991.

In 2017 Daisy held her own in the all-star filled Agatha Christie adaptation ‘Murder on the Orient Express’. That same year she reprised her role as the emerging Jedi, Rey in ‘Star Wars: The Last Jedi’.

2018 brought Daisy Ridley into the realm of Shakespeare as she took on the eponymous role in ‘Ophelia’, a revision of the famous play ‘Hamlet’ told from Ophelia’s point of view.

That same year she again lent her vocal talents to voice the character Cotton-Tail in the animated children’s film ‘Peter Rabbit’.

The following year Daisy put the final touches on her popular role of Rey in 2019’s oversized ‘Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker’. Claiming to be leaving this role behind Daisy has struck out into the realm of virtual reality.

2020 started with Daisy narrating the virtual reality documentary ‘The Dawn of Art’, an interactive and fully immersive experience through the Chauvet Cave where the earliest cave paintings are known to be found dating back 36,000 years.

She followed that with the virtual reality adventure ‘Baba Yaga’, an interactive animated tale of a young heroine, Magda (voiced by Daisy Ridley) who must face the witch of folklore, Baba Yaga (voiced by Kate Winslet). Other voices featured in the VR experience include Glenn Close and Jennifer Hudson.

After a very brief break from virtual reality to narrate the IMAX original documentary short, ‘Asteroid Hunters’ about the risk of an impact on Earth, Daisy again ventured into virtual reality for the recently released murder mystery time loop game, ‘Twelve Minutes’, providing her vocal talents once more to an interactive animated experience alongside the voices of James McAvoy and Willem Dafoe.

Next up for Daisy Ridley, she returns to the silver screen alongside an ensemble cast for the sci-fi action film ‘Chaos Walking’ due out early 2021.