Daisy Ridley's Next Project Is A Surprise

2015 was an incredible year for Daisy Ridley to say the least. The actress starred in her first feature film, Star Wars: The Force Awakens, and it was one of the highest grossing films of the year. To say that her career has been launched to new heights would be an understatement. With so much success padding her entrance to 2016, the roles she takes from here on out are increasingly more important. Ridley already has some projects on the horizon, including another Star Wars film. But the movie that will be Daisy Ridley's first role after Star Wars is a little different than expected.

The actress is set to star in the North American release of the animated film Only Yesterday. The film was originally released in 1990, but is just now getting a U.S. release, and Ridley will voice the film's main character. She will be playing Taeko, a 27-year-old woman who has lived in Tokyo her whole life, until she decides to travel to visit her family. The story is told in flashbacks that help Taeko to figure out if she's the girl she has always dreamed of being. That's quite a bit of an existential storyline for an animated flick.

This film is a step in the right direction for Ridley, but not one that a lot of people saw coming, especially considering a lot of franchise stars in the past have used that franchise fame as a stepping stone for even bigger box office hits. Just look at Jennifer Lawrence with The Hunger Games, or Kristen Stewart with the Twilight series. However, Ridley knows what she's doing. In an interview with Entertainment Weekly, Ridley explained her reasoning for taking on the animated role, "I think the reason probably this is such a loved film and will continue to be so is because it doesn’t feel foreign. It feels exactly right, like, how do you make your dreams come true?" That is a beautiful question for the film to attempt to answer, and Ridley, I'm sure, will strive to answer it in a very poignant way.

As of now, Ridley only has a small list of credits to her name, but 2016 is going to be the year she becomes a cinematic sensation. We may not get to see her physically on the screen for a little bit longer, but there is a lot of buzz surrounding the star and her future roles. It will be interesting to see the steps she takes from here on out, and the ways she will continue to change the game for women in film.