When you’re as big of a star as Daisy Ridley, everyone is always curious about what project you’re going to be in next. Ridley may be best known for her role as Rey in the Star Wars sequel trilogy, but since her last outing in the galaxy far, far away in 2019, she has starred in various projects alongside major Hollywood figures like Tom Holland, Pedro Pascal, and Ben Mendelsohn.
Ridley will next be seen in Cleaner, the upcoming action thriller from the director of Casino Royale, Martin Campbell. However, she’s also got a slew of other projects in the works. During a recent Q&A at Collider’s screening of Cleaner, which was hosted by Steve Weintraub with Leah Marilla Thomas also in attendance, Ridley teased some details about her next collaboration. She said, “Tom [Bateman], who wrote Magpie, and I are doing something, he has written something else that we have sort of been waiting for the green light, and I actually had an idea that I have been working on with someone else, which is actually quite strange because it’s the first time that I’ve done that with another writer.”
Ridley elaborated, “When I went to the meeting, he was like ‘I can’t believe you’re doing this!’ But, we had talked about it and honestly, he doesn’t have the bandwidth because he’s obviously writing something else that was his idea, but that we will do together. I want to be in it. I’m like, ‘please show me the script.’ He read the book, Fox Vision, and he’s basically written out the whole thing without having written out the script, but it’s so fantastic, and I can’t wait to read the script.”
Ridley’s husband, Tom Bateman, made his feature screenwriting debut on Magpie last year, the thriller starring Ridley alongside Shazad Latif that earned strong scores of 83% from critics and 81% from audiences on Rotten Tomatoes. While details about his next project—which will seemingly also feature Ridley in a leading role—are sparse at this time, it’s still exciting to hear that the two are already working on another movie together.
Bateman is no stranger to the screen himself; he recently featured in a recurring role alongside Kaley Cuoco and Chris Messina in Based on a True Story, the quirky comedy streaming on Peacock. He also starred opposite Colin Farrell and Joel Edgerton in Thirteen Lives, the 2022 docudrama streaming on Prime Video.
After the divisive reception to The Rise of Skywalker, the ninth and final movie in the Star Wars Skywalker Saga, there was uncertainty about whether we would see Ridley as Rey again. However, at Star Wars Celebration in 2023, Lucasfilm announced that Ridley would return to the franchise and reprise her role as Rey in a new Jedi Order movie, which will be directed by Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy. Although plot details about the film are being kept under wraps, Collider exclusively reported that Ridley will have an expanded creative role in the project, where she is “more cognizant and very involved” in bringing Rey to life once more on the big screen.
Details about Ridley’s mystery project with Bateman are sparse at this time, but you can see her next in Cleaner, coming to theaters on February 21. Stay tuned to Collider for future updates and find tickets below for a showtime of Cleaner near you.
