Will Daisy Ridley's career go the way of other SW actors?

[ChrisIII]

It seems while the second tier actors in Star Wars films usually go on to promising careers, sometimes the leads aren't so lucky.


Mark Hammil of course is well known for his voice acting but his live-action career didn't quite go the way of Harrison Ford's, or even Carrie Fisher.


Hayden Christensen, likewise, also seems to have mainly drifted away from acting, and many of his films were pretty much eventually direct to video, while Natalie, Ewan etc. still do a lot of work.


Now it looks like Ridley's latest film is in deep trouble:


https://io9.gizmodo.com/daisy-ridley...kin-1834250904

She hasn't really done that much apart from the Murder on the Orient Express either since the star of TFA it seems.

[BeastieRunner]

It seems while the second tier actors in Star Wars films usually go on to promising careers, sometimes the leads aren't so lucky.


Mark Hammil of course is well known for his voice acting but his live-action career didn't quite go the way of Harrison Ford's, or even Carrie Fisher.


Hayden Christensen, likewise, also seems to have mainly drifted away from acting, and many of his films were pretty much eventually direct to video, while Natalie, Ewan etc. still do a lot of work.


Now it looks like Ridley's latest film is in deep trouble:


https://io9.gizmodo.com/daisy-ridley...kin-1834250904

She hasn't really done that much apart from the Murder on the Orient Express either since the star of TFA it seems.

Portman and McGregor both had respectable careers before doing Star Wars.

Kind of like Isaac.

Boyega seems to be getting the roles like Fisher and Ford did during/after Star Wars.

[dkrook]

It seems while the second tier actors in Star Wars films usually go on to promising careers, sometimes the leads aren't so lucky.


Mark Hammil of course is well known for his voice acting but his live-action career didn't quite go the way of Harrison Ford's, or even Carrie Fisher.


Hayden Christensen, likewise, also seems to have mainly drifted away from acting, and many of his films were pretty much eventually direct to video, while Natalie, Ewan etc. still do a lot of work.


Now it looks like Ridley's latest film is in deep trouble:


https://io9.gizmodo.com/daisy-ridley...kin-1834250904

She hasn't really done that much apart from the Murder on the Orient Express either since the star of TFA it seems.

This is what happens when you hitch the franchise to the worst actor between the three of them.

[Vinsanity]

She's only 27. She will get a lot of films

[Powerboy]

Hard to say. Of the original cast, for years, only Harrison Ford's career really took off and that was more after he was cast as Indiana Jones. Mark Hamill hit it "big" as a voice actor.

[jetengine]

Didn't hammil lose roles because of his car accident?

[Starter Set]

Wish her best. Can't say that i have been impressed by her performance but well, at least she's a familiar face now thanks to star wars so i guess it can help for a while in the job hunting department.

Or maybe she will do like so many other actors who never managed to score another big role and she will switch to voice acting.

(that's a bit of a joke, no need to get mad)

[SuperiorIronman]

Daisy Ridley's career is still too young to know whether she's going to have a bad go of it after Star Wars. A lot of it is her role as Rey and some scattered TV appearance and that's not nearly enough to know whether she's going to have a major acting career after this. If I really had to suspect, it could go the way of Mark Hamil or Hayden Christensen, both of whom don't seems to have done that badly. Sure we don't see much of Hayden, but he doesn't seem to be in bad shape either.

[ChrisIII]

Yeah, Hayden seems to be mostly a kind of fairly relaxed guy about things, seems to be focused mainly on farming rather than acting. (Almost like an anti-Luke of sorts).

Although he technically wasn't the film's lead it's kind of a shame what happened with Lloyd though.

[Powerboy]

Didn't hammil lose roles because of his car accident?

If I recall, he had been cast as the oldest brother in the pilot for the television series, "Eight Is Enough". Then he got the Luke Skywalker role which he knew could be his big break. But the studios had a lot of actors breaking contracts to get bigger roles and they decided to play hardball, refusing to let him out of his contract. In a fit of rage or despair or whatever, he drove his car off the road and messed up his nose a bit. The studio then relented and let him out of his contract. So he actually gained the role of Luke because of the accident.

[Güicho]

...refusing to let him out of his contract. In a fit of rage or despair or whatever, he drove his car off the road and messed up his nose a bit. The studio then relented and let him out of his contract. So he actually gained the role of Luke because of the accident.

Except he'd already shot Star Wars, before the accident.
Except for a few re-shoots (which didn't inlude close up of his face) SW was already done filming.
The accident happened after ANH and before ESB

[Starter Set]

Yeah, it happened between a new hope and empire strikes back.

[Powerboy]

Except he'd already shot Star Wars, before the accident.
Except for a few re-shoots (which didn't inlude close up of his face) SW was already done filming.
The accident happened after ANH and before ESB

Upon looking it up, I see what the problem is.

People Magazine in the late 1970s reported it as Hamill not being able to get out of his Eight is Enough contract and running his car off the road which led to being let out of his contract. This was accurate but I don't think they gave any time scale and didn't make it clear he had already done Star Wars.

Apparently what happened is that he had done the Eight pilot and then done Star Wars but Eight is Enough then went to series and he wanted out although he was contractually obligated to it if it went to series. It might have interfered with Star Wars sequels. It is unclear what might have happened. With the money he made from Star Wars, he certainly could have bought his way out of the contract if they were willing but they might have played hardball and gone to court. But once he had the car accident, they relented and let him out of the contract.

[Gorthon616]

It seems while the second tier actors in Star Wars films usually go on to promising careers, sometimes the leads aren't so lucky.


Mark Hammil of course is well known for his voice acting but his live-action career didn't quite go the way of Harrison Ford's, or even Carrie Fisher.


Hayden Christensen, likewise, also seems to have mainly drifted away from acting, and many of his films were pretty much eventually direct to video, while Natalie, Ewan etc. still do a lot of work.


Now it looks like Ridley's latest film is in deep trouble:

https://io9.gizmodo.com/daisy-ridley...kin-1834250904

She hasn't really done that much apart from the Murder on the Orient Express either since the star of TFA it seems.

TBH, I don't think she's a very good actress (maybe not bad, but nothing special), so I think she's destined for the convention circuit and "remember Star Wars!" castings. I'm sure she'll get some offers here and there, but I don't really expect her career to go very far outside of Star Wars.

[ChrisIII]

Sort of on the same topic,It's kind of interesting that some of the bit players in some Star Wars actually go on to pretty big careers.

Keira Knightley, Rose Byrne played handmaidens in TPM.

Sally Hawkins is an extra in TPM, seen during the big crowd scene at the end of the film.

A lot of the minor supporting roles from the various films have had pretty substantial careers in Britain, as that's where most of the studio work for the films was done (With the exception of the prequels that were mostly filmed in Australia, and hence often had more Australian/New Zealand actors). Shane Rimmer of course, Jeremy Bulloch who played Boba Fett was pretty well known in Britain even before Fett....Hannah John-Kamen's (Ghost from Ant-Man 2) first film was a First Order officer in TFA, and one of the resistance pilots in TFA, Tosin Cole, is now Doctor Who companion Ryan.