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 Resort is 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 Star Wars 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 Train Dreams. But I will say that I have not seen Hamnet, which I can’t wait for. I’ve not seen Sentimental Value, 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, Train Dreams 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.
