Other roles
Before The Golden Compass was released, Richards had already been cast as the lead in another film, The Secret of Moonacre, her second book-to-film adaptation, in which she would play Maria Merryweather from the book The Little White Horse. Principal photography began in October 2007 and the film was eventually released February 2009.
In December 2008, Richards played April Johnson in Dustbin Baby, the BBC dramatisation of the Jacqueline Wilson novel of the same name. She described April as a difficult character to play, "she is a really different person to me. On the one hand, she does go through normal things that I can relate to, such as fighting with your parents or getting presents you don't like; but on the other, she has had such a hard life."
In April 2012, she performed a British indie feature The Fold in Bristol and Cornwall, playing Eloise, the daughter of an Anglican priest. The film is written by Poppy Cogan, winner of the Harpers/William Morris Short Script Award, and directed by John Jencks. It commercially opened in limited release in UK on 24 March 2014. The movie won best screenplay at the Women's Independent Festival in LA, Best Picture at the Independent Film Makers Showcase and was nominated for best drama at the National Film Awards.
Richards played a title role in ITV thriller Lightfields alongside Jill Halfpenny and Kris Marshall. It is a supernatural five-part drama which follows on from the ITV drama Marchlands and tells the story of three families living in the same house with a ghost during different time periods.
In 2013, she appeared in French filmmaker Stéphanie Joalland's sci-fi thriller The Quiet Hour, about a brother and sister trying to survive in a post-apocalyptic England. During the same year she filmed a short film entitled Girl Power.
Richards made her stage debut in an ensemble cast featuring Kirsty Besterman, Robert Cavanah, Flora Montgomery, Wilf Scolding, Nakay Kpaka, and Ria Zmitrowicz in English Touring Theatre's 2015 revival of Tom Stoppard's Arcadia.
Between 2016 and 2018, she was cast in the part of WPC Shirley Trewlove in the Endeavour television series. In 2018, she was cast for the part of Margaret Osborne in the ITV drama Beecham House. It began airing in 2019.
