Daisy Ridley confirmed the other day that she’s considering playing Lara Croft in a reboot of the Tomb Raider franchise. I’m supposed to say here that Angelina Jolie was Lara Croft. Which you know. But I guess this post would be incomplete if I didn’t mention that, because the comparisons will be inevitable. I don’t want to compare the two though. I want to talk about the female action movie star. Daisy was recently introduced to us as Rey in Star Wars. And Rey is the action. If she takes on Lara Croft, that’s even more action. Could she be establishing herself as a female action movie star?
There are so many male action movie stars. These are actors who only do action movies. In every decade/generation. When I was growing up it was Schwarzenegger and Stallone. Now it’s The Rock and Vin Diesel. Like The Rock and Vin Diesel aren’t looking to be in Alejandro Inarritu’s next project, you know? But what about female action stars? The Jolie and Scarlett Johansson come to mind – and they have proved that they can carry an action movie – but their work isn’t primarily limited to action the way The Rocks and the Diesels are. Is that the wrong word to use, though? “Limited?”
You could say that The Rocks and the Diesels aren’t “thespians”, that they’re not doing a play on the West End any time soon, that Daniel Day-Lewis was never going to be their way. Which means that action was their only option. That sounds like a concession. Do The Rock and Diesel millions count as a concession though? I don’t hear anybody talking about their careers all like “too bad The Rock and Vin Diesel could never live out their Shakespeare dreams”. Why shouldn’t that be an option then for a woman who has the opportunity?
This is not to say that Daisy Ridley can’t act. She can act. Of course she can act. But what if she chooses to act in action movies for now? To focus on that, on purpose. You down? I’m down.
