Playing a main character in a Star Wars movie tends to have the unfortunate side effect of… completely ruining your acting career, and while most of the new cast from Disney’s sequels will probably be fine, we still haven’t seen a whole lot of post-Star Wars work from Daisy Ridley. That’s still the case, but at least now we know about an interesting new project she’s working on. According to Variety, Ridley will be starring in a VR short from Baobab Studios called Baba Yaga.
Before we get into what this is, we should point out that this is the traditional Baba Yaga we’re talking about—as in the Russian witch who lives in a house with chicken legs—and not the handsome Baba Yaga with the a fondness for puppers and propensity for assassinating that you might know from some other movies. In the VR short, Ridley will provide the voice of Magda, the sister of the character that the viewer embodies, as the two of you enter a magical forest in hopes of finding a cure for your mother’s sickness. Unfortunately, that magical forest is also the home of the Baba Yaga, and viewers/players/whatever will have to make choices that impact the ending of the story in some way. (Tip: Don’t mess with the Baba Yaga’s dog. We know it’s a different Baba Yaga, but you should still be careful.)
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Baba Yaga is the new Baby Yoda?
For a split second, I thought the headline said Boba Fet.
For a split second, I thought you said Babu Frik.
I was lead to believe Baba Yaga was a musical mashup of Baha Men and Lou Bega.
A little bit of Coruscant in my life,
A little bit of Degobah by my side…
Baby Yaga is the new Cuddly Cthulhu.
Not exactly. Baby Yoda is the one you sent to kill the Baba Yaga.
I assumed it was the new Baba Wawa
You are assuming that they are two different characters. There’s at least one more John Wick movie. I assume the house with the chicken legs will show up in that one. They’ve just been playing the long game with the Baba Yaga references.
I wanna see Keanu try to block kicks from those legs, I bet he can’t do it
No, he’ll just knock the house to the ground, wrap his legs around it and use it has a shield before shooting it in the head. You know, the usual.
So glad the sequel trilogy is over with. I’m down for seeing Daisy moving on without a lightsaber and branching out with different movies.
Ah yes, it’s very unusual for a Star Wars lead to have a subsequent career. That’s why Harrison Ford, Ewan McGregor, Natalie Portman, Liam Neeson, and James Earl Jones have faded into obscurity since their turns in the films, and why Oscar Isaac can’t be found in any other recent projects. And why nobody has heard Mark Hamill’s voice since the 80s.
Honestly, other than Ahmed Best, Jake Lloyd (a kid, so barely counts), and Hayden Christensen (ok, you’ve got me there), most of the leads have really done well for themselves. Even Carrie Fisher had a good career afterwards, albeit more as a writer than an on-screen actress (though that had far more to do with drugs and mental illness than it did with her time in a galaxy far far away).
And let’s not forget that it wasn’t being in Star Wars that ruined Hayden Christensen, it was his being a shitty actor.
Yeah, “completely ruining your acting career” is a bit of an exaggeration.
Sure Mark Hamill and Hayden Christensen aren’t as much a household name as Harrison Ford. But very few actors are household names compared to Harrison f%$kin’ Ford.
Harrison’s just pissed that people don’t recognise him as the carpenter and Beaver owner he is – what he really wants to be known for.
All of the ones you’ve listed were already established as actors before they did Star Wars(besides Harrison Ford, but nothing was going to stop him from being a star). People that had their big breaks with these movies haven’t all fared so well. Most of the unlucky ones were in the prequels though. The problem isn’t Star Wars, the problem is the first time they’re being judged by the public, they’re being directed by George Lucas, whose only acting note for the entire trilogy was “less emotion.”
Memory serves, didn’t Portman even say at one point she was worried the films would kill her career?
Luckily didn’t prove to be the case, but given the amount of shit she was getting for her performances in them, I can see why an up and comer would think “…welp. I’m fucked.”
There is a phenomenon — not specific to Star Wars — of someone relatively unknown introducing themselves to the world with a memorable and recurring role in a multi-year franchise. That role becomes the only thing for which the actor is known, by default, and then they have some work to do break themselves out of that box. And a corollary of being a sudden breakout star is sudden wealth and stardom, which can be a trigger for mental health issues, as with Carrie Fisher’s substance abuse.But like I said, that’s not specific to Star Wars at all. The young cast of Harry Potter faced a similar challenge. Michael Richards faced a similar problem after his breakout role as Kramer. The cast of Friends tried to use their TV stardom as a launch pad for film careers, and for the most part they all flopped (Matt Leblanc tried to use it as a launch point for continuing to play Joey on TV, but even that flopped). Jennifer Anniston faired the best, but it’s probably not a coincidence that her character was the least cartoonish. You could probably come up with hundreds of examples. Being typecast is the rule rather than the exception, when audiences’ first impression of you is cemented by a single role.
Heck, Peter Cushing’s dead, and that still hasn’t hindered his film career.
Oh it’s just Barsanti venting again
the Russian witch who lives in a house with chicken legsPlease elaborate. Does the house have chicken legs? Does she have chicken legs? Does she co-habitate with chicken legs? This can be interpreted many different ways.
The house has chicken legs.
The house has giant chicken legs attached to it, and runs around the woods.
“You know Baba Yaga?”
“Little children sleepy tight…”
Finally, something to watch on the VR set that I’ll never buy. I still have a thick TV!
Thick TV?
I stole it from an old folks home. Sure, I have to break in every day and act out a Mattlock episode at 2 pm, but it was worth it.
“You’re walking on thin ice, Mattlock!”
does anybody else remember Baba Yaga from the old game Quest for Glory?
I read this ENTIRE article thinking that Baba Yaga was that tiny guy in Rise Of Skywalker who hacked into C-3PO’s memory. Heh that little guy was funny
Baba Yaga is such a Mary Sue. She can just do things.
You had me at “VR Daisy Ridley”
Drats. I was hoping for a Daisy Ridley VS. John “Baba Yaga” Wick.