Damsel is the top movie on Netflix for the second week in a row — Millie Bobby Brown's epic has clocked 86.1 million views in just 10 days.
Many of those viewers are probably wondering why the voice of the dragon sounds so familiar. They've probably heard and seen the actress behind her before.
Damsel follows Elodie, a young woman who agrees to marry a handsome prince, only to find the royal family wanted her as a sacrificial lamb to pay an ancient debt to a dragon. Tossed into the beast's lair in the mountain, Elodie will have to survive while learning the truth about the Kingdom of Aurea.
Also starring Angela Bassett as Princess Elodie's stepmother, Robin Wright as Queen Isabelle and Nick Robinson as Prince Henry, the movie is a survival tale that subverts the trope of the damsel in distress.
As we mentioned earlier, Elodie's biggest threat in Damsel is a fire-breathing dragon, whose voice you've probably heard before — it belongs to Iranian-American actress Shohreh Aghdashloo.
The actress joins Hollywood's long-standing tradition of stars voicing dragons on screen, which also includes Sean Connery in Dragonheart and Rachel Weisz in Eragon.
In a behind-the-scenes clip, Aghdashloo explained her process of bringing this dragon to life through her voice.
"I decided to use a diaphragm voice for her, because, as you know, there are different kinds of voices. Depends on the character. Head voice, chest voice, and diaphragm. Dragon is all diaphragm because she's ben wounded badly and deeply.
And that's why the voice doesn't come from the head. It comes from the mansion full of pain."
You might recognise Aghdashloo from her recurring roles in TV shows like The Expanse and The Flight Attendant. Most recently, she played Bellafrancesca Lobo in the 2023 movie Renfield alongside Nicolas Cage and Nicholas Hoult.
After debuting in 1976 movie The Chess of the Wind, Aghdashloo became a prominent actress in Iran, but she moved to England at the start of the Iranian Revolution. She then travelled to Los Angeles, building a solid career in movies and TV.
In 2003, she was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress thanks to her performance in The House of Sand and Fog.
She's appeared on iconic TV shows like ER, Will & Grace, Grey's Anatomy, Law & Order: Special Victims Unit, House and Bones. She also was one of the main characters in the fourth season of 24, for which she received a nomination to the Satellite Awards.
Along her on-screen roles, her distinctive, smoky tones have got her voice-acting work in movies like Percy Jackson: Sea of Monsters, animated TV series like Netflix's Arcane and Kung Fu Panda: The Dragon Knight, and video-games like Destiny and Assassin's Creed Mirage.
She is set to appear in the Batman TV series The Penguin starring Colin Farrell, although her role has not been announced yet.
For now, we can enjoy her voice acting in Damsel, which was praised by director Juan Carlos Fresnadillo. "It feels like we use a lot of sound effects on her voice, but we didn't," he explained.
"Her voice is completely broken and profound. Like you're hearing in the movie. It's so well-connected with this creature and the way that she literally reflects that pain and that grief that she's suffering. I think Shohreh did such an amazing job."
Damsel is available to watch now on Netflix.
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Deputy Movies Editor, Digital Spy
Mireia (she/her) has been working as a movie and TV journalist for over seven years, mostly for the Spanish magazine Fotogramas.
Her work has been published in other outlets such as Esquire and Elle in Spain, and WeLoveCinema in the UK.
She is also a published author, having written the essay Biblioteca Studio Ghibli: Nicky, la aprendiz de bruja about Hayao Miyazaki's Kiki's Delivery Service.
During her years as a freelance journalist and film critic, Mireia has covered festivals around the world, and has interviewed high-profile talents such as Kristen Stewart, Ryan Gosling, Jake Gyllenhaal and many more. She's also taken part in juries such as the FIPRESCI jury at Venice Film Festival and the short film jury at Kingston International Film Festival in London.
Now based in the UK, Mireia joined Digital Spy in June 2023 as Deputy Movies Editor.
