Roar Uthaug and Alicia Vikander may be well into production on 2018’s Tomb Raider, but that doesn’t mean the film’s cast is done growing. A recent report from Deadline confirms that Killjoys star Hannah John-Kamen has joined the project as the best friend and flatmate to Vikander’s archaeologist-adventurer Lara Croft. John-Kamen is the first actress to sign onto the film in a major role since Vikander came on board last April.
John-Kamen’s character name hasn’t been released yet, but judging by the provided description alone, it seems likely that she’ll be playing Samantha Nishimura. Nishimura is a character from the 2013 Crystal Dynamics video game on which the film is based, who on top of being Croft’s best friend, plays a key role in driving the game’s story forward.
Most recently, the actress was cast in Steven Spielberg’s highly anticipated film adaptation of the much-loved Ernest Cline book Ready Player One. Between Ready Player One and Tomb Raider, two major studio blockbusters, 2018 is shaping up to be a major year for the young actress.
In addition to Killjoys, she has appeared in such projects as Game of Thrones, Black Mirror, Happy Valley and Star Wars: The Force Awakens.
SEE ALSO: First-look images of Alicia Vikander’s Lara Croft from Tomb Raider
Lara Croft is the fiercely independent daughter of an eccentric adventurer who vanished when she was scarcely a teen. Now a young woman of 21 without any real focus or purpose, Lara navigates the chaotic streets of trendy East London as a bike courier, barely making the rent, and takes college courses, rarely making it to class. Determined to forge her own path, she refuses to take the reins of her father’s global empire just as staunchly as she rejects the idea that he’s truly gone.
Advised to face the facts and move forward after seven years without him, even Lara can’t understand what drives her to finally solve the puzzle of his mysterious death.Going explicitly against his final wishes, she leaves everything she knows behind in search of her dad’s last-known destination: a fabled tomb on a mythical island that might be somewhere off the coast of Japan. But her mission will not be an easy one; just reaching the island will be extremely treacherous. Suddenly, the stakes couldn’t be higher for Lara, who—against the odds and armed with only her sharp mind, blind faith and inherently stubborn spirit—must learn to push herself beyond her limits as she journeys into the unknown. If she survives this perilous adventure, it could be the making of her, earning her the name tomb raider.
Tomb Raider is set for release on March 16th, 2018 and also features Dominic West (The Affair), Walton Goggins (The Hateful Eight) and Daniel Wu (Into the Badlands).
Originally published April 15, 2017. Updated November 30, 2022.
