The Little Girl Who Played Samara In The Ring Is Unrecognizable Now
In 2002, actor Daveigh Chase played the iconic horror character Samara in "The Ring," a film about a strange videotape that causes its viewers to die a week after watching it. The movie was based on the original 1998 Japanese film "Ring," which was in turn based on the 1991 book of the same name by author Koji Suzuki. Even though Chase was only 12 at the time, her Samara became a national sensation, and the movie is still regarded as a horror classic 20 years later.
In the film, Samara is the ghost of a girl who had special psychic abilities that drove her insane. Her adoptive parents locked her up, and after she willed her mother's beloved horses to kill themselves, her mother (Shannon Cochran) suffocated Samara and pushed her down a well, where she died seven days later. A journalist named Rachel (Naomi Watts) uncovers this history when her niece dies a week after watching the videotape that was supposedly created and cursed by Samara after her death.
"The Ring" did pretty well with critics (via Rotten Tomatoes), who praised its subtlety and lack of gore, with the film relying instead on its disturbing story and atmosphere to scare audiences. Chase even won the award for Best Villain at the 2003 MTV Movie and Television Awards (via IMDb). A sequel came out in 2005 called "The Ring Two," but Chase did not return as Samara for that film, or any later installments. So what exactly does the creepy Samara look like all grown up?
Daveigh Chase continued to act after The Ring
The same year Daveigh Chase played Samara, she also voiced the main character Lilo in Disney's "Lilo & Stitch," and continued to play the role in the sequels and spin-offs that followed. She also voiced the character of Chihiro in the English dub of "Spirited Away," which came out a year earlier in 2001. She scored one of her other most prominent roles in the same year when she played Samantha Darko in another creepy cult classic, "Donnie Darko."
Since then, Chase has acted in many different films, a handful of which saw her return to the horror genre. She also had an extensive role in the television series "Oliver Beene," which aired two seasons in 2003 and 2004. Later on, Chase voiced the titular character in the 2007 animated show, "Betsy's Kindergarten Adventures." Additionally, Chase played Rhonda Volmer on the long-running HBO series "Big Love," which focuses on a polygamist (Bill Paxton) and his three wives. Her character, Rhonda, is a selfish, pathological liar, who is also the 15-year-old bride of the town's supposed prophet.
Now 31 years old, Chase most recently lent her voice to the video game "Let It Die," which was released in 2016. She has not appeared in anything since then (via IMDb), so it seems like Chase may be taking a break from acting for now.
The Ring's Daveigh Chase has had a few run-ins with the law
Outside of her film, television, and video game work, Daveigh Chase hasn't lived a highly publicized life. That said, she did gain public attention in 2017 and 2018 due to some unfortunate run-ins with the law. In specific, Chase was arrested in November 2017 for riding around Hollywood in a stolen car. According to a 2017 report from TMZ, Chase was not the one driving the car in question but was nonetheless arrested for riding in a stolen vehicle.
A year later, in 2018, The Blast reported that Chase was given two misdemeanor charges for possession of a controlled substance. According to the report, Chase had also been arrested and questioned by police in 2017 for her suspected involvement in the death of a man who had been left outside of a hospital that same year. However, it was reported that the police eventually came to the conclusion that she did not have anything to do with the man's death.
Little is known about what Chase has been up to in recent years beyond those three incidents.