Cara O'Doherty on the red carpet.
Lara Croft, one of the biggest names in gaming history, returns to the big screen this week. Alicia Vikander takes on the role of the kickass archaeologist made famous by Angelina Jolie. At the Dublin premiere, actor Daniel Wu, represented the Tomb Raider team.
Wu, who has stared in over 60 movies, is currently filming Into the Badlands which is shot on location in Ireland.
In the Tomb Raider reboot, Wu plays Lu Ren, a vital cog in Lara Croft’s investigation into the disappearance of her father.
In this, the era of #TimesUp, a female led action movie is more relevant than ever, a point that Wu heartily agreed with “the diversity happening in Hollywood right now is a much-needed thing. Now that I have a daughter it is really important to work on things that set a good example for her. She saw the trailer and was so excited to see Lara, she wanted to know everything about her.”
The 44-year-old actor admitted that times have changed “little girls didn’t have characters like that when I was growing up. We had Wonder Woman and the Bionic Woman but they were tv shows. We didn’t have big screen female heroes. It’s really great to have positive female role models now.”
Wu commented on Lara’s journey of self-discovery in the movie “the action aside, she really has to find herself, she struggles with what so many of us struggle with when we are younger. It’s great for little girls to see that struggle on the big screen, so they know that its normal to question who they are and what they want to become.”
Now that Wu is working in Ireland would he like to see a Tomb Raider sequel set on our shores? “It would be so great, I could work on two things as once” he laughs. “Ireland is such a great place to film, we are seeing more and more productions coming here now [Badlands, Game of Thrones, Nightflyers]. Irish crews are great, the scenery is amazing and everything is so close and easy to get to.”
Tomb Raider opened in cinemas on March 14
Cara O'Doherty joins Dave Duke on The Hub on iRadio every Thursday at 10pm
